De natura et gratia libri III, cum Apologia contra Catharinum

I could indeed have silently passed over the answers to the adversaries' arguments: so well have those who wrote to us before diluted everything; but I will not break the thread and sequence of my design, and I will take care to run through them without tedium. Especially because in chapter 19 of the first book, where we established that not all the works of a sinner are sins, and in chapter 2 of book 2, where we dealt with the dispositions to grace, I deferred answers of this kind to this place. These men can bring forward no reason, because they derive this necessity of their sinning from the contagion of original guilt: which matter is outside the natural line. For from this they immediately fabricate a certain comment on that word of Christ, A bad tree cannot bear good fruits.¹ For concupiscence, they say, is an inevitable evil, and no work can be done by us which is not in some way born from it: therefore every work is evil in this way. In like manner the Manichaeans persuaded their heresy,² as Augustine³ notes in book 2 On the Words of the Lord, saying that one nature was good, which could not do evil, and another evil, which could not do good. And therefore Augustine says there, and afterward in the Enchiridion, that by the name of tree is understood not nature but will, and he calls will intention, in the manner of the philosophers. For in this way neither is a good work born from a bad tree, nor an evil one from a good tree. For if tree were taken for nature, since every nature is good, none could do evil, not even the power of the will. Christ elsewhere calls this intention the eye, where he says,⁴ If your eye is simple, your whole body will be lightsome; but if it is wicked, your whole body will be dark. And that by the name of tree is understood not nature but the intention of the will is clear from the other words: Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad. For we do not make nature, but the will, and the works which spring from it. Therefore neither are all works born from the concupiscence of the flesh, nor is that called the tree from which all works are infected: but all things are good or evil from the will. From the will, especially if it is divinely helped, many good works can exist. In like manner they distort also that saying,⁵ That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. From it they infer that all works, even those which proceed from grace, although in that respect they are spiritual, nevertheless insofar as they flow from the concupiscence of the flesh are carnal and sins. But Christ brought forward that word only for the sake of a similitude. Namely, that just as from animal generation an animal man is born, so from the regeneration of baptism a spiritual man is born. But if anyone wishes to refer it to works, he will be able to establish only this, that those works which are born from the inclination and intention of the flesh are vicious against reason. But it is contrary to human sense that all our works in this way take their origin from the flesh. But there are very many other passages in the Old Testament which, twisted against their author, they strive to use. And they take their first beginning from where Moses says,⁶ The Lord seeing that the wickedness of men was great on the earth, and that all the thought of their heart was intent on evil at all times, repented that he had made man on the earth, etc. From that word, All the thought of their heart is intent on evil at all times, Luther gathers, art. 36, that there is no liberty of choice in us for good, but that all our works are evil and of themselves mortal sins. But there are indeed many sins in this collection of his. For first the circumstances of the words plainly show that that word was not said of every kind of men at all times on account of original [sin], but of the men of that age on account of their wicked crimes. For thus the chapter begins: When men had begun to be multiplied on the earth, the sons of God seeing the daughters of men that they were fair, etc., where the corruption of that race is depicted. And therefore it is added: The Lord seeing that the wickedness of men was great on the earth, and that all the thought, etc. Does not the word "seeing" designate present wickedness? And what is added, It repented him that he had made man? And what is subjoined, And foreseeing in the future, I will destroy man? For that destruction was made as a punishment of the human race then corrupted. Whence what he says, at all times, is only the word of one indignant: namely, that they thought nothing of amending their morals, but daily heaped crimes upon crimes and outrages upon outrages. And perhaps the same is the sense of the similar repeated word, which is the second passage in Luther:⁷ I will no more curse the earth for men. For the sense and thought of the human heart are prone to evil from its youth. But let this be referred to the sense and thought of the human heart in general, as this second passage seems to present, how then does it follow from this that no good at all can proceed from free choice? Namely, that not only idle thoughts (to use Luther's words) but also ingenious ones, and those which a man thinks on purpose, are all evil. For it is not said there that every thought of the human heart is sin, but that it is intent and prone to evil: that is, that the inclination of the flesh and sensuality (for this is what he calls the human heart) of itself allures and draws reason and the will to evil; yet it does not follow from this that other works are evil, if a man, with reason overcome, freely consents to the flesh. For James says⁸ that each one is tempted by his own concupiscence, and then concupiscence, when it has conceived (namely by consent), brings forth sin. But see whether this is clear in chapter 8. For God promises that he will therefore not avenge with such severity hereafter the crimes of the human race, because the thought of the human heart is prone to evil: yet he would not have brought into the cause of that clemency that all the works of men are sins: for this rather ought to move God to anger; therefore thought there is taken for the struggle of the flesh. So that the sense is that men are worthy of pardon because they sin on account of the continual strife and battle of sensuality, which they can with difficulty and only with difficulty always overcome. Whence in chapter 6, after he had said that all thought was intent on evil, the prophet immediately adds: But Noah found grace before the Lord. And in the following chapter: I have seen you just before me in this generation. Luther also twists another third word of the same chapter 6:⁹ My spirit shall not remain in man forever, because he is flesh. From this one passage he makes a twofold subtlety. First, that if man is flesh, he can do nothing good. Second, that God has so taken away his good spirit from men that the spiritually dead cannot do anything but the works of death. But this passage is expounded by the Fathers in two ways, from neither of which can Luther in any way extort his comment. First (according to Jerome)¹⁰ the Hebrew word is more significantly rendered in Latin as "he shall not judge," and "he shall not remain." According to this, the spirit of the Lord there is taken for his anger and indignation, and flesh for fragility. So that the sense is: I will not hereafter exact such grave punishments from men, because they are fragile, but I will permit them to live one hundred and twenty years. Josephus says¹¹ that this age was granted to men after the flood. But according to the Latin reading, "my spirit shall not remain" is taken for animal life: so that there is an allusion to that saying,¹² God breathed into man the breath of life; but flesh is taken for carnal men, in whom reason is buried. So that the sense is: this generation shall not live forever, because it is carnal. Wherefore what follows about one hundred and twenty years is not referred to the age which men were to live (as Augustine is the authority in City of God 15, chapter 24),¹³ but to the time of truce during which God would await the amendment of men. For it must be understood that God said this twenty years before Noah began the ark, whose building lasted one hundred. Wherefore it immediately follows in the text: I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth. But even if we wish to grant Luther this too, that spirit is taken for the good spirit of God, he needed little dialectic to understand the sense of that universal [word]. For he did not say that it would never remain forever, but that it would not remain forever: that is, that it would not always and perpetually remain in man. To this sense nothing is repugnant, but that it can sometimes be that it remains. Nor can Luther himself deny that the spirit of the Lord is in man through faith and grace: why then will it not be for doing good? The fourth passage is Isaiah, most frequently repeated by them:¹⁴ We are all become as one unclean, and as a menstruous cloth are all our justices. Yet this passage is without any doubt understood precisely of that people. Without doubt, I say. First on account of the authority of the expositor Jerome,¹⁵ who says that it was said when the Savior had not yet come, but the people bore the image of the earthly man. And besides, he says that there is depicted the justice of the law, which in comparison with evangelical purity is reckoned as uncleanness: which he confirms by many testimonies. But the text itself reveals the sense of the prophet more clearly than light. For he desired the coming of the Messiah with great ardor and anxiety of soul. For would that you would rend the heavens, he says, and come down. And with such affection he exaggerated the need of the people, and deplored its ruin, lamenting how all, having forgotten the law, were wandering about, and all their justices were as a menstruous cloth. For they were then under captivity, where, absent from the temple, they could not offer sacrifices to expiate sins, nor use the purifications of the law. And therefore he alluded to their menstruous cloth. And the paraphrase and explanation of it immediately follows. Because we have fallen, he says, like a leaf of the whole, and our iniquities like the wind have taken us away. And after repeating many figures of this kind he concludes: Be not angry, Lord, exceedingly, and remember iniquity no more: behold, look upon us, all your people. Surely these words cannot be fitted to the whole human race now. Nay, there is a most manifest contradiction in Luther. For if it is understood of all of us too, how does he himself say that sinners who invoke the name of Christ in horror of their sins, and flee to his mercy, are justified by faith? For it is also found there: There is none who calls upon your name, who flees to you and holds you. But although that confession could have some general understanding, it is not to be understood of individual works, but that the whole life of a just man cannot but be sprinkled with frequent stains. For a menstruous cloth need not be wholly defiled, but can be spotted. Nor is every stain mortal.¹⁶ For St Thomas notes four kinds of stain there: namely, the absence of grace excluded by mortal sin, and this alone is properly a stain; then an intention less right; or third, the swelling of pride over a good work, which can be venial sins; fourth, some negligence besides, which can in some way be signified by the name of stain, even if it is without sin. For which reason, as we said above, even the most just can confess that all their justices are as a menstruous cloth. In which sense the Preacher says, There is no just man on earth who does good and does not sin. And especially if it is compared with that splendor of the justice of God dwelling in inaccessible light. Besides, as Gregory says to Augustine of the Angels: It is the part of good minds to acknowledge fault where there is no fault. The fifth testimony, most familiar to our Protestants, is that of the Psalm:¹⁷ Enter not into judgment with your servant, Lord, because no living man will be justified in your sight. For from this passage Luther gathers, art. 31, what his follower strives to assert, that there is no good work in us in the eyes of God, by this syllogism. God, because he is just, cannot condemn a good work: since therefore he says that no living man, not even the servant of God, is justified in his sight, it is plain that no good work can withstand the just judgment of God: wherefore neither is it good. But Roffensis¹⁸ has prudently and acutely noted the reluctance of the words. For if God cannot condemn a good work, how does Luther say that a good work cannot withstand the judgment of God? Therefore he says that a good work, which according to him is also evil, is both condemned and not condemned. That passage therefore is sufficiently expounded in the same sense in which it has been explained. For it is not said there that no work will be just in the sight of God, but that no just person will be so justified in the sight of the divine majesty that he in whom no secret lies hidden does not see many evil works which are hidden from us. For besides him, who understands his sins? But perhaps there is also another sense of Augustine in his exposition of the same psalm. Namely, that a man cannot be justified in the sight of God as he can in comparison with another man. For among men one can first merit a reward by himself, so as to claim it by his own right, but in respect of God it is not so, because no one first gave to him. And therefore neither can we bring before the sight of God even our own justices, in which there would be no account of venial fault, as if they were made by our own powers, for which we should ask rewards. For he would answer: What do you have that you have not received, who gave you both to think and to will and to work? Thus the Psalmist wishes nothing else here than to reprove those whom Paul also censures: namely, those who, ignorant of the justice of God and seeking to establish their own, are not subject to the justice of God. He cites¹⁹ besides the holy Fathers as witnesses. As Augustine in book 10 of the Confessions, chapter 13, where among the lamentations which he poured out to God for his mother, he says: Woe even to the praiseworthy life of men, if you examine it apart from mercy. For they persevere in their dialectic, arguing from the whole life to individual works: whereas Augustine means nothing else than that there can be no life so praiseworthy which has not had light sins mixed in. For he says beforehand concerning his mother: She had so lived after baptism as to give praise to your name in her faith and morals. Yet, he says, I do not dare to say that no word ever came from her mouth against your commandment. And therefore he adds: Woe even to the praiseworthy life, etc. And a little below: Therefore, my praise and my life, God of my heart, setting aside for a little her good acts, for which I joyfully give you thanks, I now pray you for the sins of my mother. Augustine therefore expressly distinguishes the good acts of his mother from the evil. Luther cites besides Gregory²⁰ in book 9 of the Dialogues, where he says that the holy man Job perceived that every merit of our virtue is a vice if it is strictly judged by the internal will. But deliberately, as was his prudence, he cited the gloss without the text. For he saw that through the text an answer would easily be given to him. For the text is that,²¹ Truly I know that it is so, and that man cannot be justified when compared with God. Where that holy man meant nothing else than that our justices, even if absolutely through the grace of God they are true justices, nevertheless in comparison with that infinite rectitude and divine goodness are not reckoned justices: just as a reed in the midst of snow is not judged white. And truly he could have affirmed this not only of the justice of this age, but also of the justice of the angels in heaven. Especially since he does not speak there of individual works, but that man will not appear just when compared with God. And therefore he adds that if a man wishes to contend with God, he cannot answer him one for a thousand: that is, for a thousand benefits which he has received from God, he will not be able to bring one which he himself first gave to God. For neither is the beginning, Gregory says there, from us; but that our justices, when compared with the divine, do not appear as justices, must be explained more fully in chapter 7. Meanwhile, to return to Gregory, he never fell into such an error as to think that no human action is free from fault. For writing to Augustine of the English, he says that it is the part of good minds to acknowledge fault where there is no fault. And in the same work of the Morals he often confirms that not only can some work be free from fault, but even a man. Especially in book 2 on those words,²² In all these things Job did not sin with his lips, nor did he speak anything foolish against God. Where Gregory says that testimony was given to blessed Job both of his mouth and of his heart, because he restrained fault from his tongue and restrained it from his heart. And although Gregory had not said it, the text itself, In all these things Job did not sin, would be abundant for us to crush the audacity of those who say that there is no good work which is not a sin. In short, the saints pray for five reasons²³ that God not enter into judgment with them, but they cast all their works upon his mercy. The first and most powerful is doubt about the salvation set before them, of which no one is so certain that he is not always in fear. The second, because there is scarcely anyone who has not committed some mortal sins, concerning which he does not know whether he has done true penance. The third on account of venial dangers, which no one can avoid. The fourth on account of negligences, which are very much mixed into every good work. And finally the fifth, because even the good works themselves do not have their root from us, but from the mercy of God, and therefore we cannot deal with him by our own right.