Fragmenta in epistulam ad Romanos

The divine apostle, doing good works, became an unblemished image for his disciples, for which reason he also cried out: "Become imitators of me, just as I am of Christ." Therefore, what he said is not his own in the strict sense: "I know that the good does not dwell in my flesh, nor am I a wretched man; who will deliver me from this body of death?" But these and all such things he says, acting in a prosopopoeia, for the refutation of those who love sin. Just as divine scripture knows how to call men fleshly, psychic, spiritual, and by countless other names based on their actions, so too it knows how to call the devil not only Satan, the Adversary, the Devil, the Serpent, the Lion, and Beliar, but also flesh, law, sin, and death. For we were enslaved to these through disobedience and not to Christ. For this reason he says: "When we were in the flesh," indicating that they are no longer in the flesh, even though they are in the flesh, so that he is not disparaging the flesh we wear, but the flesh that is homonymously so called, from which we have been delivered by dying in Christ through being buried with him in baptism. Truly we have been freed from this flesh; for he adds, saying: "But now we have been abolished from the law of sin, having died in that in which we were held, so that we serve in the newness of spirit and not in the oldness of the letter." Then he began again the prosopopoeia according to the hypothesis, beginning from: "What then shall we say? Is the law sin? Far from it," up to: "Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?

Having set forth an unshakable foundation in the prologue by way of his own defense, he speaks thus: "What then? Is the law sin? Far from it," and that the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good. Here he calls "law" not the one that opposes the law of our mind, but the preceptive law, the one that punishes those who sin. For this reason he also voted with it as something holy and just and good. Then, in this manner, he began again to resolve consistently what he had said above, having prefaced a grateful discourse thus: "I give thanks to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Then, in condemnation of those who take such things as their starting point and disparage the flesh which we wear, he says interrogatively: "So then, do I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but the law of sin with my flesh? Am I, Paul, divided, serving the law of God in one part and the law of sin in another? Do I have both Christ and Beliar together and at the same time within myself? Do I, who say, 'I no longer live, but Christ lives in me,' have sin living in me as a liar? I, who have addressed others: 'Do you not know that your bodies are a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, and glorify God in your members,' do I myself have nothing good in my body?" But he is not such, he is not; far from it. For a child of wrath and a vessel of wrath before, having changed his manner, not his nature, he became a precious vessel of election. Since, therefore, the words spoken in prosopopoeia neither suit the divine Paul, nor indeed anyone buried with Christ through baptism, because they have been freed from the so-called flesh.

For such persons will no longer be condemned because of Adam's disobedience; sin no longer rules over them, nor does death which comes through sin. For they have been buried with the life of Christ, who by obedience obliterated disobedience, and by his own voluntary death repelled the death that befell us from it. For he voluntarily placed himself under the law of disobedience, in order to ransom us who were under the law of condemnation. For this reason he said, "Every one who has been redeemed: grace to God through Jesus Christ our Lord." For what the law was unable to do, in which it was weak through the flesh, God, by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, condemned sin in the flesh. And that these things have been so rightly observed, the divine apostle adds, saying, "Therefore there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus." For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has freed me from the law of sin and death, and so forth. I shall now attempt, briefly and in passing, to speak about the very words spoken in personification, beginning from the point where it says, "But sin, taking occasion through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me." The name "sin" does not denote a subsistent substance, but a manner and way of life of one who has missed the mark of what is according to reason and correct. For just as "sin" is a most generic name, predicated of many and various things, every sin occurs neither by reason nor by prescriptive law. For if it occurred according to law and right reason, it would no longer be a defined sin having a determinate account of its generation.

Since the divine apostle does not simply mention sins, but speaks of sin in its most general sense—sin that has a will, that has a law, that is capable of devising and procuring occasions for the construction of evil—he names no other thing as sin in this most general way than the very originator and father of sins, the devil. For this reason the apostle declared that sin rules over sins: "Let not sin rule in your mortal body." For just as we call men by the craft they practice, so also he calls the devil himself "sin," as the first inventor of sin. Since, then, through the commandment given to Adam, he deceived the man, and through it Adam, procuring occasions through the commandment. And this is it: "Why," he says, "did God say, 'You shall not eat from any tree in the garden by eating; and on whatever day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be as gods, knowing good and evil'?" He cunningly conceals the deception by a greater promise; he promises more, so that he may overthrow the guardians of the commandment from the foundations of virtue by a fall like his own. For having driven the man mad with the desire to become equal to God, he procured the occasion for his deceitful conversation from the commandment given. For this reason Paul said, "Sin, having taken occasion through the commandment, deceived me." And so that some might not blame the commandment or the God who gave it, he used a neighboring and kindred expression, speaking as follows:

We know, however, that the law is holy and the commandment is holy and just and good. Since, therefore, not even sin itself—that is, the devil—is sin by nature and essence, he adds, saying: so that sin might become sinful to an extraordinary degree through the commandment. For that which is something in essence will not admit of more and less; for it is what it is, always being essentially that which it is. For that which comes to be and has something supervening upon it, whether little or to an extraordinary degree, is different in essence from the things that supervene upon it; for quantity is not essence but is about essence, not being essence. Therefore, the sin called by the apostle, admitting of more, will sin, so that sin might become sinful to an extraordinary degree. Therefore, it also took a beginning of being sin, insofar as it is sin, not being sinful to an extraordinary degree at the beginning according to the having sinned. For this reason, he indicates the intensification of becoming sinful to an extraordinary degree in future time, speaking thus: so that sin might become sinful to an extraordinary degree through the commandment. But if they should say: and how could it be good and just? And how could the commandment and the law be holy, when through the occasion of them

... so that sin might become sinful to an extreme degree. Let them hear concerning these things that it is not the case that if something is harmed, the cause through which it is harmed is already base and evil. For neither do we say that the sun is evil because those who gaze at it without restraint and immoderately harm their eyes, nor do we say that the Son of God is base and evil because the devil has become sinful to an extreme degree by having attempted against the Son of God. But I know that the good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh. Now he interprets this in the person of Adam. And that, having been deprived of having God in himself, having exchanged death for true life—for death prevailed not only the common death of his members, but also the death of disobedience invading his soul; for especially the prevailing death reigned before the coming of Christ, having disobedience as the law and scepter of its kingdom. But the kingdom of death is not without beginning or ungenerated; for death comes from the living, and disobedience comes from the obedience of subjects. For the willing is present to me, but the accomplishment of the good is not; for what I will as good, this I do not do, but what I hate, this I do. If the willing alone is in us, but the accomplishment of the willed good is not in us, then the good God sent the consubstantial souls into bodies in vain; for they do not do, they do not actualize what is dear to him and to them, but only will; perhaps not even that, for it is unclear. But if this is true, I will speak according to the impious:

Therefore, there would never have been nor will there ever be the good in life, nor would anyone ever have performed it, if they interpret it in every person as the abolition of the good and the noble, that what I wish as good, this I do not do, but what I hate, this I practice. Whence, then, were the names of virtues found in human life? If there are those who perform the good, even if they are few who do this, then will not all say: we know that the good does not dwell in us; for what they wished as good, this they do. But if those who perform the good, while existing in the flesh, do this, and those who do not do this but do evil are also in the flesh, then the cause of the good not coming to be is not to be attributed to the flesh, but to their soft-heartedness. For if evil dwells alongside those who wish to do the good, and likewise the good does not lie alongside those who wish to do evil, and after planning and prior willing they proceed to such an extent of activity, then our bodies are not base by nature and essence; for our actions are preceded by deliberation and will, and these belong to a soul possessing free choice, capable of inclining toward whichever actions it wishes. But now, I no longer accomplish it myself, but the sin dwelling in me. He defended through this statement that the flesh is not base by nature; for it is not the flesh which we wear that dwells in us, but the devil who dwells in the lawless. For just as I say: Christ dwells in every righteous person who works the good, in the same way, I think, the devil dwells in every evildoer.

Therefore, we are not evil insofar as we have flesh, but the sin dwelling in us, which is something other than the flesh and the soul of the human being; for it is especially in the soul that the devil is said to reside, according to the saying, "Satan entered into the heart of Judas," and according to, "Ananias, why did Satan fill your heart?" And it is well said, "I no longer accomplish it, but the sin dwelling in me," for there is a great difference between a work and a preparation, because the preparation precedes the work, as for example in a house or a temple; and the preparation is the preliminary arrangement of the material. Therefore, the sin dwelling in those who sin, that is, Satan, admittedly pre-works in our thoughts the construction of the idea of the future evil, with the soul that receives him cooperating in the wickedness, just as the womb of the female cooperates with those who sow for the seed to be brought to term. And since evil thoughts proceed from the heart, from the conception that has taken place by the devil, the divine word cries out: "Cleansing thoughts and every height raised up against the knowledge of God." Just as, then, in virtuous souls the Holy Spirit is said to labor together, according to the saying, "I labored more than all, but not I, but the grace of God that is with me," so also, when a negligent soul is persuaded by the exhortations of the devil, it has him, the devil himself, as a co-worker for evil; for he himself has pre-wrought in it the pattern of the future sin. For this reason it is said, "I no longer accomplish it, but the sin dwelling in me.