Chapter XI: Is Concupiscence in the Reborn Sin?

Chapter XI: Is Concupiscence in the Reborn Sin?

CHAPTER XI: IS CONCUPISCENCE IN THE REBORN SIN?

§ 36. The second question is of greater significance, and thus is worthy of careful examination: Are the first impulses of corrupt concupiscence truly and properly sins before God, even if the consent and deliberation of the mind does not yet accede to them?

Observe that concupiscence is understood in three ways: (1) As the desiring [concupiscibilis] faculty, which is a natural potential which is in itself a good, with which the first man was also equipped in his state of innocence.

(2) As the good and [rightly] ordered operation of concupiscence,¹ as in the appetite for food in a starving person. I evaluate its goodness with regard to its object, and its [good] order with respect to its manner.

(3) As evil concupiscence, and this again in three ways. (a) As concupiscence which inheres habitually, such as it is after the fall. (b) As its first impulses and actions to which full consent has not yet acceded. (c) As the evil fruits of concupiscence which it produces through the consent of reason.

Therefore let the related questions first be removed. (I) The question is not whether the following is sin: the concupiscence to which consent, pleasure, and the fulfillment of the thing have acceded, the concupiscence to which the corrupt impulses incline. For even the Papists concede that this is sin (though incorrectly they add that it is a venial sin by its own nature).

(II) Nor is the question whether the corrupt impulses of concupiscence were in man by a secondary actuality² before the fall, for this they also deny with us.

(III) Nor is the question whether the rebellion of the flesh against the spirit is the punishment for original sin, for the Papists also concede this.

(IV) Nor is the question whether the remnants and punishments for original sin—namely, ignorance, difficulty, a propensity for evil, corrupt concupiscence—can be called the wounds of nature and the material for sin, a weakness of nature, and the kindling of sin, for the Papists also assert this.

(V) Nor is the question whether the first impulses of concupiscence to which consent has not yet acceded make reborn people guilty of wrath and eternal death before God, for we clearly deny this and say with the apostle, Rom. 8:1: “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.”

Therefore the entire question is about the concupiscence which is left in the reborn after Baptism, that is, the concupiscence habitually inherent as well as its first impulses, whether they are also of themselves and of their nature sins, if the umbrella of grace be removed. That is, does not an evil of fault³ conflicting with the divine Law make [Christians] actually guilty before God and subject to eternal death, even if by way of accident⁴ it is not imputed to the reborn, namely, for Christ’s sake? We answer affirmatively; the Papists deny it.

Arguments of the affirmative side.

§ 37. We prove the side which affirms the question with the following arguments, the first group of which we take from Romans 6–8.

First, concupiscence is called sin.

(I) Whatever Scripture calls sin in the proper seat [sedes] of this article is truly sin in the proper sense. Yet Scripture calls concupiscence sin in the proper seat of this article. Therefore it is truly sin in the proper sense. The major premise is evident because in an article of faith the letter must be adhered to closely, especially in its proper seat, as we showed in our treatise On the Interpretation of Scripture [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 2, §§ 148–49]. Bellarmine (De sac. Euchar., bk. 1, ch. 9, col. 489): “Important dogmas are not usually taught but in the proper words of Holy Writ; for figures have a place in prophecies to obscure a subject, or in praises to adorn the topic, or, finally, in exhortations to amplify the matter, but not in dogmas, which ought to be believed and kept precisely.” [Bellarmine again] (col. 492): “The common rule of explaining Scripture is this: that we never dismiss the proper sense of the words unless we are compelled to do so by some other Scripture or by some article of faith or at least by the common explanation of the entire church. For otherwise faith will perish, and only an opinion about divine matters will remain, and a door will be opened to countless errors.” [Bellarmine again] (ch. 12, col. 524): “The proper and literal meaning must always be chosen unless the contrary is proved clearly. Nor ought we be asked by our adversaries as to why we follow the proper sense of the words, for this would be as if someone were to ask those who are on a journey why they follow the common, well-trod path. For no sane person asks that, nor does he ask why we enter through the door rather than through the window.” Those are all the words of Bellarmine.

§ 38. The minor premise is also certain, for in Romans 6–8 the apostle calls the concupiscence of the flesh “sin” not once but several times. Rom. 6:2: “How can we who have died to sin still live in it?” Verse 6: “Our old man was crucified so that the sinful body might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin.” Verse 7: “For he who has died is justified from sin.” Verses 11–14: “Consider yourselves dead to sin. Let not sin reign in your body to make you obey its desires [concupiscentiis]. Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness. Sin will have no dominion over you.” Verses 16–19: “You are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin which leads to death,” etc. “You were once slaves of sin. You have been freed from sin. You once yielded your members to serve lawlessness unto lawlessness.” Rom. 7:5: “The passions of sins were at work in our members.” Verse 7: “I did not know sin except through the Law.” Verse 8: “Apart from the Law sin is dead.” Verse 9: “When the commandment came, sin revived.” Verse 11: “Sin deceived me.” Verse 13: “Sin, that it might appear to be sin, worked death in me through the good, so that sin might be sinful beyond measure.” Verse 14: “I am sold under sin.” Verses 17 and 20: “Sin which dwells within me.” Verse 23: “The law of sin in my members.” Verse 25: “With my flesh I serve the law of sin.” Rom. 8:2: “The law of the Spirit has freed me from the law of sin.” Verse 3: “He condemned sin in the flesh.” Verse 10: “The body is dead because of sin.”

The Jesuit Ribera (commentary on Hebrews 12): “The apostle usually calls the concupiscence of the flesh against the Spirit ‘sin.’”

Bellarmine (De amiss. grat. et stat. peccati, bk. 5, ch. 5, col. 367): “In Romans 6 and 7 the apostle frequently calls the concupiscence of the flesh that he experienced within himself ‘sin,’ though he was justified and holy.”

Therefore the conclusion that concupiscence is truly sin in the proper sense will stand firm. The Jesuit Tanner (Exam. relat. Hunn., ch. 13, § Sed quia): “It is wicked to dishonor the imitation of the Scriptures, [their] manner of speaking and the truth with respect to the subject itself, as a blasphemous and unheard of monstrosity.”

The counterarguments of Bellarmine.

§ 39. Bellarmine (De amiss. grat. et stat. pecc., bk. 5, ch. 10) counters: “Both in the sixth and in the seventh chapter [of Romans], concupiscence is quite often called ‘sin,’ but improperly through the figure of metonymy, because it is the cause of sin if one obeys it.”

We respond. We repeat the rule given earlier [§ 37] that in articles of faith one is not allowed to depart from the proper nature of the words unless Scripture itself demonstrates the impropriety⁵ and itself explains it.

Let Bellarmine then publish the very pressing reasons which force us to depart from the proper nature of the words in this place, especially since the apostle calls concupiscence “sin” in so many different places and nowhere adds that it is so called by metonymy. (I) Bellarmine says, “The apostle did not add that it is properly sin.”

We respond. On the contrary, because he did not add that it is sin by metonymy, it remains that it is called sin properly. The native meaning of words continues to have a place until it is transferred to another meaning by tropes. In the same way, the Pelagians would be able to respond to all the passages opposed to them, saying that nowhere is it added that those passages must be understood properly. Let Bellarmine recognize his own words cited a little earlier [§ 37].

(II) “A metonymic meaning of ‘sin’ in this passage is clearly concluded from the Scriptures, for the Scriptures bear witness that the word ‘sin’ is ambiguous and is sometimes taken for fault and sometimes for the punishment which is the effect of the fault, sometimes even for the cause of sin, and sometimes, finally, for the sacrifice which is the expiation of sin.”

We respond. It is not enough to show the ambiguity of a word. Rather, it must be shown that it is used here by metonymy and not properly, as we taught in On the Interpretation of Scripture [1610 Loci Theologici, locus 2, §§ 148–49]. Therefore it must be demonstrated from the very heart of the apostle’s context that we must follow a metonymic meaning to the exclusion of the proper sense. Let Bellarmine repeat his own words (De sacram. Euch., bk. 1, ch. 11, col. 518): “We do not deny that there is a trope in the word ‘cup’” (in the words of the Supper), “but in the same place the figure is explained very clearly, something which cannot be said about the trope which is established in the word ‘body.’”

(III) “Scripture teaches that sins, properly so called, are removed in justification, nor is it less certain that concupiscence is not removed in justification. Therefore it stands that the passages of Scripture which call concupiscence ‘sin’ must be explained in a figurative sense on the basis of the Scriptures themselves.”

We respond. Error is being piled on error. Sins are removed in Baptism and justification not in such a way that they utterly do not exist but that they are not imputed. Christ removed original sin, but on account of this has it been completely taken away from all men in actuality? That is the Anabaptist position. There will be more about this in its own place [On Holy Baptism (Commonplace XXIII), §§ 128–64].

(IV) [Bellarmine continues:] “The apostle testifies that this sin is in the body but not in the mind. Rom. 6:12: ‘Let not sin reign in your mortal body.’ Rom. 7:18: ‘Good does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh.’ But now sin, properly so called, cannot exist in the body but in the mind; for where there is unrighteousness, where can righteousness have a place? But who will place righteousness in the members of the flesh? Therefore the apostle is clearly signifying that concupiscence is sin not properly but figuratively.”

We respond. The apostle does not here understand the word “flesh” to mean only the body or the sensitive appetite or the inferior part of the soul (as they call it) but also his entire self, insofar as he is still established under the old flesh or, as he himself says, “I am carnal and sold under sin” (Rom. 7:14), which very point we shall confirm in its own place [§ 51]. Let Bellarmine repeat his own words (De amiss. gratiae et stat. pecc., bk. 5, ch. 15): “The vice of concupiscence dwells especially in the flesh, that is, in the inferior part of a person, which is stated especially with regard to sense [sensualiter], as we have taught from the apostle, Romans 7. Furthermore, it must not be denied that even in the superior part a similar vice is found, for that part, too, is prone to desire, honors, vainglory, etc. For this reason, in Galatians 5 the apostle also assigns heresy and idolatry among the works of the flesh [v. 20].” Those are the words of Bellarmine.

§ 40. To this first argument [of ours] we add the following strength. If Scripture itself teaches that anything must be taken in its proper sense, that must surely be accepted in the proper sense. But Scripture itself teaches that concupiscence is properly called “sin.” Therefore the term “sin” must here be accepted in its proper sense. The major premise is placed beyond the shadow of a doubt. We confirm the minor in this way. The apostle calls concupiscence something “not good” (Rom. 7:15), but “evil.” And he describes this evil both privatively (“I cannot do the good,” v. 18) and positively (“The evil which I hate, that I do,” v. 19). There he calls it the sort of evil which is “worthy of hatred, which must be crucified,” and which must be “mortified and destroyed” (Rom. 6:6); which makes us “wretched before God” (Rom. 7:24); and from which one should pray with serious groans to be freed (Rom. 7:25 [cf. 8:26]).

Bellarmine counters: “Although concupiscence is not properly sin, nevertheless it is a corruption which incites one to evil, and thus cannot be called a good but both a privative and a positive evil.”

We respond. Concupiscence is not merely the evil of punishment but also the evil of fault. Every evil which is worthy of the hatred of God and of the devout, which must be destroyed and mortified, which makes us wretched in our spiritual life before God is an evil of fault. But concupiscence is just such an evil. Therefore it is an evil not only of punishment but also of fault. The major premise is obvious, for every evil of punishment insofar as it is such, and which is simply such [a punishment], is from God and, consequently, is not worthy of the hatred of God and of the devout.

The definition of sin fits concupiscence.

§ 41. (II) The second argument. If the proper definition of sin fits something, it is properly sin; that is obvious. And yet the proper definition of sin fits concupiscence. Therefore concupiscence is properly sin. I confirm the major premise from 1 John 3:4: “Sin is lawlessness.” Concupiscence is lawlessness. Rom. 7:7: “I would not have known concupiscence had not the Law said, ‘You shall not covet [concupisces].’” Therefore it is sin. Do not suppose that this syllogism affirmed in the second figure proves nothing; note that the major premise is reciprocal since it is an essential definition. Every sin is lawlessness, and every lawlessness is sin.

Bellarmine counters:

Concupiscence here does not mean the kindling but the voluntary act of desiring [concupiscendi], which is proved from the apostle’s context. For when the apostle said that the Law was not sin, that is, the cause of sin, but was the cause of the knowledge of sin, he proved this from the fact that people would not have recognized that their inner actions, like desiring another’s wife or property, were sins if the Law had not said, “You shall not covet” [Rom. 7:7]; and also from the passage of the evangelist, Matt. 5:28: “Everyone who looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Christ said this against the Pharisees, who taught that internal disgraces were not sins, as is clear from Josephus (Antiq., bk. 12, ch. 13) and Rabbi Kimchi (on Ps. 66:17).

To this Bellarmine assigns the meaning of the words “he has committed adultery in his heart.” From those words he concludes that it is not the concupiscence of the flesh but the concupiscence of the heart which has been forbidden in the Law.

We respond. (1) In its own place [On the Law of God (Commonplace XV), §§ 53, 179–80] we shall show that not only the voluntary act of coveting but even the first impulses of sinful concupiscence have been forbidden in the Decalogue.

(2) Here the apostle is asserting that the concupiscence that he could not recognize as sin except from the Law is the concupiscence which is forbidden by the Law. But now, surely he can recognize that a voluntary act of lusting is sin from the light of nature without the illumination of the Law. Even the better heathen have acknowledged this, something which is obvious from heathen authors, especially from Plato, Aristotle, and Seneca.

(3) Stapleton (Antidot., Romans 7, p. 364) writes: “The Jews, men most literal and dense, did not understand that mental adultery, homicide, and theft were sins also connected with the consent of reason.” And in the same book (p. 362), he writes: “Without the prohibition of the Law, great sinners do not know that the voluntary impulses of concupiscence are sins.” Yet the apostle Paul, even before his conversion to Christ, was not so literal and dense nor so great a sinner, [for] he recognized that the voluntary inner failings were sins. Phil. 3:6: “According to righteousness under the Law, blameless.” 2 Tim. 1:3: “I serve God with a clear conscience, as did my fathers.” Acts 23:1: “I have lived before God in all good conscience up to this day.” Stapleton (Antidot., p. 369): “The apostle lived in all good conscience before God.” Therefore he cultivated not only external righteousness but also true righteousness before God. Page 370: “The inner thoughts of a man who lives in all good conscience before God are not defiled with a corruption of the heart but are completely pure.”

(4) In this place the apostle asserts that concupiscence is sin and is forbidden by the Law, and he says about it, [Rom. 7:]15, that he does not do what he wants but what he hates; v. 17, that he himself is not doing it, that is, because he did not choose it, doing it with full and deliberate consent; v. 18, that it dwells in his flesh; v. 23, that it is at war with the law of his mind and makes man captive to the law of sin which is in his members. Yet all these things do not fit the deliberations but the first impulses of concupiscence.

(5) If this counterargument of Bellarmine finds a place, how many equivocations will be established in the words “sin” and “concupiscence”? To this it is cold to reply that equivocations do not obscure but adorn the meaning. For this can be said only about equivocations if they are used in praises to adorn the subject or in exhortations to amplify the matter. But in dealing with dogma, equivocations are inappropriate unless they are first explained.

(6) The apostle states, not in reference to other people but in reference to himself, that he did not know that concupiscence was sin except through the Law [Rom. 7:7]. Therefore from this statement the contrary is concluded, namely, that in this passage the subject is not a voluntary act of coveting [concupiscendi] (which the apostle was not unaware had to be considered in the number of sins) but the first impulses of corrupt concupiscence.

(7) In Matthew 5, when Christ cleanses the divine Law of the corruption of the Pharisees, He shows that not only the desires of deliberate concupiscence but also its first impulses are forbidden by the Law. Verse 22: “Whoever is angry with his brother without cause will be liable to judgment.” Here, with the word “anger,” He includes all the inner impulses in the mind, will, and heart that are not in harmony with the norm of the Fifth Commandment. In v. 28 He shows that the Sixth Commandment forbids every lustful desire [concupiscentia venerea] in the mind, heart, and will, in the senses, commands, gestures, speech, etc. He expressly names the heart, sight, and desire [concupiscentia] under which the Hebrew includes the rest by synecdoche, because in the Fifth Commandment He had explained those grades by name. The proposition πρός [“in order to,” Matt. 5:28] does not limit the concupiscence of the heart to a voluntary act but indicates that what is meant is the sort of looking by which the heart is titillated within and is kindled with lust, or when the heart, seething with lust, gives itself to the eyes and seeks the desire [concupiscentia] of the eyes that the lust of the heart may be fed and inflamed all the more from it. For this reason, in 1 John 2:16 the concupiscence of the flesh and the concupiscence of the eyes are tied together.

(8) Therefore what Bellarmine says, that “the concupiscence of the heart and not the concupiscence of the flesh is forbidden in the Law,” is false and unfounded, because Scripture uses the word “heart” to mean all the powers of the soul, and the word “flesh” to mean the entire man still established under the old flesh. Therefore the Law accuses the concupiscence of both the flesh and the heart. This is something that will be more fully understood from the following [§ 42], when we shall prove that even the first impulses of concupiscence are truly at war with the Law of God: “You shall not covet [concupisces]” [Exod. 20:17]. Here we shall follow the footsteps of Bellarmine and proceed to free from his corruptions the arguments drawn from Romans 6–8.

Arguments from the Epistle to the Romans.

§ 42. (III) The third argument. The apostle asserts that the following is sin and is forbidden by the Law: the concupiscence through which and because of which “he was carnal” and “sold under sin” against his will (Rom. 7:14). And yet this is the concupiscence of the flesh through which a person becomes a sinner, even though the consent of the will has not yet acceded; in fact, it happens contrary to the will, something which is clear from v. 15: “What I hate, that I do”; v. 16: “What I do not want to do I do”; v. 19: “I do not do the good I want.” Therefore even the concupiscence of the flesh—that is, the first impulses of concupiscence—are sins and are forbidden by the Law even if consent has not acceded.

Bellarmine objects: (1) “Some of the ancients claim that the apostle is speaking not about himself and other regenerate people but in the persona of the wicked, who by the very kindling of sin are drawn into various disgraceful acts, and yet who meanwhile somehow recognize and hate them by the light of reason.”

But this is too weak. The words and circumstances of the text clearly refute that explanation, and Augustine already disapproved of it when he, writing against the Pelagians, retracted it later after using it himself. Stapleton writes (Antidot., at this passage): “In his own persona and in that of a reborn person the apostle is saying, ‘I am carnal [Rom. 7:14].’” In fact, Bellarmine himself attributes very little to it, for he prefers the second explanation.

Therefore he again counters: (2) “The Law is not kept by the justified as far as the end is concerned, that is, as far as perfection is concerned, which is the end of the commandment and, consequently, is not properly in the commandment. Yet it is possible for it to be kept quite well according as there is a need to avoid sin.” Stapleton (Antidot., at v. 16) sets this forth as follows: “The Law forbids the first impulse of concupiscence not by way of obligation but by way of teaching, because this is the end and perfection of the Law: that we lack every corrupt desire, something which is fulfilled not in this life but in the next.”

Does the Law forbid some things only by way of teaching?

§ 43. This is a strange distinction which conflicts with the very subject that is to be distinguished, for the genuine and proper nature of the Law is not only to teach what is good but also to obligate one to the good, not only to teach what is sin but also to prohibit it. Therefore let us hear with what colors Bellarmine paints it. He says:

It should be known that at times in the commandments only the means to an end are indicated, as when it is says: “Fight against the foe. Provide medicine to the sick.” For these are means—the former, to victory; the latter, to health. Sometimes both the means and the end are signified, as if one should say: “Overcome the foe. Heal the sick.” For here not only the fight and cure, which are the means, are being commanded, but also the end—victory and health—is indicated. Furthermore, the obligation of a commandment consists properly in the means which it orders, not in the end. He is a transgressor who neglects the means, not the person who does not achieve the end. For the person who is told “Conquer the foe,” does not sin if he does not conquer, provided he fights bravely, nor is the person sinning who is told to heal the sick even if he cannot cure him, provided he apply himself to the healing. For in a commandment the end can be indicated, but it cannot be enjoined. Thus the command “You shall not covet [concupisces]” [Exod. 20:17] is of the type that includes means and end at the same time. The means are to resist desires [concupiscentiis], never to assent, never to yield to them. These are binding in such a way that whoever does not do this continues to be guilty. The end is to uproot desires completely and to accomplish this in such a way that no impulse in the flesh develops contrary to reason. But the Law sets forth this end that we may understand whither we must strive with the help of God, not that we would become guilty if we do not do that which is not in our power to do and which pertains to the blessedness of the life to come, rather than to an obligation of this life. For thus St. Augustine teaches (Letter 200 ad Asellicum): “The Law has set this forth by saying, ‘You shall not covet,’ not because we have the strength to do this but because we strive for this as we do it.” Also (De nupt. et concup., bk. 1, ch. 29): “He does much good who does what is written: ‘Do not follow after your desires [concupiscentias]’ [cf. 1 Pet. 2:11]. But he is imperfect because he does not fulfill what is written: ‘You shall not covet [concupisces].’ Therefore the Law says, ‘You shall not covet,’ for this reason: that when we understand that we are laid low with this disease, we may seek the medicine of grace, and that we may know in that commandment both whither we should strive in this mortal life and to what height we can reach in that blessed immortality.”

After setting these things forth, Bellarmine adds such a paraphrase of the apostle’s words:

“The Law is spiritual,” that is, it wholly requires spiritual things: that it be preserved perfectly even as far as its end is concerned. “But I am carnal,” that is, I am not yet completely spiritual the way I shall be after the resurrection. “I am sold under sin,” that is, I am still awaiting the redemption of the body. So therefore the apostle was not yet completely perfecting the spiritual law “You shall not covet [concupisces]” in the part in which he was still carnal. But yet he was not sinning, because the Law does not obligate him not to feel the impulses of the flesh, but rather not to consent to them.

§ 44. Bellarmine (De monach., bk. 2, ch. 13, col. 474) repeats this same distinction so that he can maintain that the Law can be fulfilled perfectly in this life. But we respond to this fabricated distinction in the following points.

(1) Bellarmine conflicts with himself. If only the concupiscence of the heart—that is, voluntary concupiscence, but not the concupiscence of the flesh—is forbidden in the law “You shall not covet [concupisces]” (which Bellarmine asserted in response to our second argument), why does he argue here that even the first impulses of concupiscence, that is, the very concupiscence of the flesh, is also forbidden by the Law?

(2) It is inconsistent to say that the Law forbids some things by way of obligation but other things only by way of teaching, for every prohibition is an obligation. Therefore whatever the Law prohibits, it prohibits by way of obligation. Thus the Law teaches in such a way that it makes clear what ought to be done or avoided. And thus bare knowledge is not enough; it also requires practice. The form of the Law consists of obligation, because by its own nature it is a norm, measure, and rule. Therefore it obligates one to whatever it teaches.

(3) The Law obligates one not only to the means but also to the end itself in whatever way the “end” of the Law is understood. The internal end of the Law is perfect and absolute uprightness, and righteousness in every detail, and conformity with God, the Archetype. 1 Tim. 1:5: “The end of the commandment is love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a faith unfeigned.” Surely the Law obligates to this end, because all the commandments of the Law are summed up in the command about love. Rom. 13:8–9: “He who has loved his neighbor has fulfilled the Law. The commandments ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, is summed up in the sentence” (as if it were reduced under one heading) “ ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” Matt. 22:37–40: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And the second is like it: you shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the Law and the prophets.” If the Law were not to obligate one to this internal end, it would not obligate at all, because all the rest of the things to which it obligates are included in this one command about love.

The external end of the Law is the attainment of eternal life, and the Law also obligates one to this. For thus it requires perfect obedience from man so that through it he might attain eternal life. Therefore by obligating one to perfect obedience, it also obligates one to eternal life. Matt. 19:17: “If you would enter life, keep the Commandments.” To the lawyer asking, “What can be done to have eternal life?” (Luke 10:25), Christ responds: “What is written in the Law? How do you read?” [v. 26]. And when he recites the commandment of love (v. 27), He responds (v. 28): “This do, and you will live.” Therefore, properly speaking, the Law promises eternal life and obligates one to achieve eternal life.

(4) Therefore since the commandment about not coveting [non concupiscendo] pertains to the internal end of the Law, then surely the Law obligates one not to covet [concupiscere]. It is unscriptural to assert that “do not covet” pertains only to the end which the Law shows and not to the means to which the Law obligates, since it pertains to the perfect righteousness that the Law requires.

(5) In this place belongs the observation: the apostle has one and the same opinion concerning the command about not coveting [concupiscendo] and the commandments about not committing adultery and not killing (Rom. 13:9). Therefore as the Law obligates one not to commit adultery and not to kill, so also it will obligate one not to covet. Yet it does obligate one not to commit adultery, not to kill, etc., as the means of attaining eternal life. Therefore it will obligate in the same way not to covet. To all the Commandments of God is added the general statement, Deut. 27:26 and Gal. 3:10: “Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all that is written in the book of the Law.” Therefore whatever has been written in the Law obligates us under the curse of eternal punishment.

(6) The comparisons which Bellarmine provides about the soldier who is bound only to fight energetically but not to conquer, and about the physician who is obliged to care zealously but not to heal, are dissimilar and foreign to this passage. It has never been in the powers of any soldier to fight in such a way that he always conquers; it has never been in the powers of any physician to give care in such a way that he always cures. Yet the Law was given to man before the fall when he was equipped with perfect strength, through which he could render the perfect obedience [required], so that he might not feel the first impulses of concupiscence.

Therefore we turn those comparisons on their head in this way. As the soldier who has the power to conquer is bound not only to fight energetically but also to conquer, and as a physician who has the power to heal is bound not only to take zealous care but also to heal, so also the first man was bound by the Law not only not to go after his own desires [concupiscentias] but also not to desire. The same obligation still endures, for though those powers were lost through the fall, nevertheless no part of the Law’s obligation has receded because of this. This can be made clear with the example of a debtor who, reduced to the final limit of poverty by his own fault, is unable to pay, yet still is bound to pay. Here pertains the statement from Thomas Aquinas (cited in § 26) that the declaration “No one sins in that which he cannot avoid” must be understood with this limitation: “if he has not fallen into that impossibility by his own fault,” such as someone who voluntarily hurls himself into a pit from which he cannot come out by his own power.

(7) The words of Augustine do not yet prove that which Bellarmine wanted to carve out of them. Augustine says, “It is impossible to fulfill the Law about not coveting [non concupiscendo] in this life.” From these words Bellarmine wants to prove that “we are not bound” to fulfill that commandment, but these words are certainly not of equal meaning. Augustine is saying that in eternal life the Law will be fulfilled perfectly by us, but nowhere does he add that we are not bound to it in this life. On the contrary, because Augustine says that our ailment is recognized from the Law and that we are bound to seek a physician for the soul, he surely is presupposing that we are bound by an obligation to that Law, for he writes (Letter 200 ad Asellicum): “The usefulness of the Law is that it convinces man of his weakness and forces him to ask for the medicine of grace which is in Christ.” In De nupt. et concup. (bk. 1, ch. 29) he says: “Much good is done by the reborn, but nevertheless the Law is still not perfected by them, that is, perfectly fulfilled—which fact cannot be overturned by any sophistry.”

§ 45. But lest Bellarmine appear too generous in his concessions, after he had argued at length that even the first impulses of concupiscence in some way are forbidden by the Law of God, he adds: “Also probable is what others teach, that the commandment ‘You shall not covet [concupisces]’ by no means forbids involuntary impulses but only the assent.” You see the rashness of those people; they invent and depict all things in accord with their own judgment, lest the genuine meaning of Scripture be acknowledged. He had just conceded that the first impulses of concupiscence are forbidden by the Law of God, and a bit later you will hear him not only deny this but even overturn it with arguments, whether they occur [in reality] or not [κεῖται oὐ κεῖται]. But how does he prove that only a voluntary corrupt concupiscence connected with assent is forbidden by the Law of God? [Bellarmine writes:]

(1) “This is called ‘the law of the mind’ by the apostle in Rom. 7:23 because it was given to the mind and not to the flesh.”

We respond. The “law of the mind” means the propensity of a person reborn through the Spirit to show perfect obedience to the Law, as we shall demonstrate in its own place [cf. §§ 47–48; On the Law of God (Commonplace XV), § 3]. It is false to say that the Law is not given to the flesh but only to the mind; on the contrary, the Law is given to the entire man, just as original righteousness was the uprightness of all his powers.

(2) “All the Commandments of the Decalogue are meant in reference to actions which are free and wholly voluntary. Therefore this commandment about not coveting [concupiscendo] also [was so meant].”

We respond. Both the antecedent and the conclusion itself are false: the former, because in Matthew 5 Christ interprets the command about not killing in such a way that He shows that even the first impulses of wrath are forbidden by it [v. 22]; the latter, because that which is quite obscure in the rest of the Commandments according to the letter of the words is made quite clear in the final commandment about not coveting, about which we say more elsewhere [On the Law of God (Commonplace XV), § 179].

§ 46. (IV) The fourth argument. The “mind” of blessed Paul, reborn as it was through the Spirit, and the Law of God wanted the same thing. Rom. 7:16: “But if I do what I do not want to do, I consent to the Law because it is good.” Yet the mind of the blessed apostle did not want to feel the impulses of concupiscence. Therefore even the impulses were conflicting with the Law of God. For this reason Augustine (Sermon 5 de verb. apost.) says: “What do you say, O Law? ‘You shall not covet [concupisces],’ and I do not want to covet. My weakness does not fulfill the Law, but my will does praise the Law.”

Here Bellarmine is deceitful: (1) He repeats his own distinction between the prohibition of the end and the means, which we refuted earlier [§ 44]. (2) He says that the consent of the blessed apostle with the Law consists in this: not that Paul and the Law want and do not want the same thing, but that Paul wants and does not want that which the Law orders him to want, that is, to resist desires [concupiscentiis].

We respond. The Law requires not only that one resist covetous desires [concupiscentiis] but also that he not covet [concupiscatur]. The apostle, who has been reborn through the Holy Spirit, wants both. But because he is still partly established under the old flesh, he still does what he does not wish nor approve of, namely, he feels the desires of the flesh.

(3) He asserts that “it is more easily said that both the mind of the apostle and the Law do not want concupiscence as an object. Meanwhile, with his coveting the apostle is not yet transgressing the Law, since he is not coveting voluntarily, just as involuntary killing is not against the Law.”

We respond. If only that which is voluntary in actuality is a transgression of the Law, then all sins of ignorance and weakness will be removed. If only that which is voluntary in actuality is sin, original sin will be denied altogether. There will be a discussion of involuntary killing in its own place [On the Law of God (Commonplace XV), § 157]. Furthermore, the solutions of Bellarmine overturn each other. For if even the first involuntary impulses of concupiscence are prohibited by the Law, then the consent of the Law and mind cannot be established while resisting covetous desires [concupiscentiis], and in this way the second response undoes the first. In turn, if the mind of the apostle and the Law of God do not want concupiscence as an object, then surely they are willing against the same thing, and in this way the third response overturns the second.

§ 47. (V) The fifth argument. The apostle complains that when he wants to do good, evil lies close at hand (Rom. 7:21). Therefore concupiscence is surely the sort of evil which excludes the perfect fulfillment of the Law and, as a consequence, is sin.

First, Bellarmine complains about the obscurity of this passage, and then adds that the meaning is this:

“I find that the Law is something good to me, I who want to do good, that is, who want to do good works and to live according to the Law. But the reason why I find that the Law is something good is because the evil of concupiscence lies close to me, for while, on the one hand, the evil which is close by urges me to sin, on the other hand, the Law of the Lord draws me back from sin.” And thus it is impossible to make it out from this passage that the Law cannot be kept or that involuntary concupiscence is a sin.

We respond. Some people separate the words “I find it a law” from those which follow, and they compose this kind of paraphrase of them: “I am constituted in such a way that the Law is received through creation.” Others explain it this way: “I find that, when I want to do something good, it is a law” (that is, this law has been imposed) “that evil lies close to me.”

Ambrose asserts that “the Law of Moses gives to his will a consent against the sin which dwells in the flesh,” and Augustine (Contra duas epist. Pelag., bk. 1, ch. 10) follows this explanation.

Theophylact translates it in this way: “I find that the Law protects me when I want to do good, but I do not do it because evil lies close to me.”

Erasmus takes the word “that” specifically, in this sense: “When I try to obey a good law and I am dragged toward evil by conquering cupidity, I feel that the evil is within me and not within the Law.”

Whatever it is, since it adheres to him, one cannot doubt that the evil about which the apostle is complaining is concupiscence. Because it adheres to him when he wants to do good and impedes him in his perfect fulfillment of the Law, it is surely sin. We place the strength of our argument in the opposition of good and evil. Bellarmine understands “the evil near at hand” to mean the evil of punishment, but the opposition of good and evil shows clearly that the evil of fault is to be understood. The word “law” we take as a reference to the law of sin clinging to the members, according to the explanation in [Rom. 7:]23.

§ 48. (VI) The sixth argument. Anything that conflicts with the law of the mind (reborn through the Spirit) and holds a man in the law of sin is surely sin. But such is concupiscence (Rom. 7:23). Therefore it is sin.

Bellarmine counters: “Not everything which militates against the Law is sin,” and this, he says, is “beyond controversy.” But, my good man, this is not only controversial but is also clearly false. In fact, the apostle provides this definition: “Sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4).

Whether everything which conflicts with the Law is sin.

Therefore, according to the most common rule, whatever is lawlessness is sin. Whatever the definition fits, to that must be attributed what has been defined, for, as Damascenus (Dialect., ch. 8) teaches: “A perfect definition is one that is reciprocal with regard to the thing defined.”

Therefore Bellarmine sees that this is not beyond controversy, and thus he tries to prove it: (1) “A sinner militates against the Law, and yet man as sinner is not properly sin.”

We respond. But this is wretched sophistry. A sinner is at war with the Law not because he is a man, but because he is a sinner. Therefore whatever in man conflicts with the Law—that is, whatever departs from the rule of the Law with which it ought to be in harmony—is sin, understood formally. (For there is another understanding if you take the lawlessness materially, so that the subject to which the lawlessness and sin cling is meant.) Bellarmine knows this as exactly as the palm of his hand, because he himself distinguishes between the material of sin (which he not very suitably calls “substance”) and the form of sin (which he calls its “proper nature”) (De amiss. grat. et stat. peccati, bk. 1, ch. 1). He says: “The substance of sin is a voluntary action or voluntary omission of an action. The nature of sin is the actual turning away and departure from the rule in the action or its omission.” These are the words of Bellarmine here, who was pleased in this passage to engage in sophistic deceit by confusing the material and form.

(2) “An unjust law is at war with a just law, and the law of one ruler is contrary to that of another, yet neither of these is properly sin.”

We respond. An unjust law is opposed to a just law in a contradictory fashion, but sin is opposed to the Law privatively. These things should not be confused. As far as positive laws are concerned, their nature is different from that of the divine Law, for the former can vary with regard to circumstances, but the latter is an eternal and immutable rule.

After setting forth these things, Bellarmine responds to the argument: “Concupiscence is at war with the Law not as an action that departs from the rule, since it could and should be in harmony with the rule, but it is at war as a contrary law that drives one to evil, as the devil also is at war with the Law, as well as anything which stirs one to transgress the Law.”

We respond. Subordinates must not be opposed to each other.⁶ Concupiscence is sin because it departs from the rule of the Law, and it drives one to sin because, when it has conceived, it gives birth to sin. Therefore we turn Bellarmine’s solution on its head. As a law which commands evils is not only the cause of lawlessness but also is actually lawless (for such a law which commands evils is a law only in terminology and in name alone), and as the devil who drives one to sin is not only the cause of sin but is himself a sinner, so also the concupiscence of the flesh is not only the cause of actual sin but is also itself sin. The words which Bellarmine adds are treacherous: “anything which stirs one to transgress the Law.” They are understood as external objects which do not incite to sin by their own nature nor of themselves but only accidentally, insofar as corrupt concupiscence lies hidden in a person exciting him. They should not have been cited here.

§ 49. (VII) The seventh argument. Anything that makes people wretched in their spiritual life before God and from which they are freed only by Christ must be considered as sin. But the former fits concupiscence. Therefore also the latter. Rom. 7:24–25: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from the body of this death? Thanks be to God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.”

Bellarmine counters: “This is a very clumsy argument because the apostle is speaking about the wretchedness of punishment and hopes for liberation from his mortal body.”

We respond. It is expressly added in the major premise of our argument that only something which makes a person wretched in his spiritual life and before God and from which he is freed only by the grace of God through Christ is the evil of fault. As is obvious, all these things cannot be attributed to the evil of punishment. The apostle was glorying in his tribulations (Rom. 5:3), but he laments so miserably because of the concupiscence still clinging to his flesh. Very often “wretchedness” [ταλαιπωρία, cf. Rom. 7:24] is taken as a reference to the misery of fault. Rom. 3:16: “In their paths is wretchedness.” Rev. 3:17: “Not knowing that you are wretched and pitiable and poor and blind and naked,” all of which are understood to mean spiritual nakedness, blindness, and misery. Bellarmine is correct in saying, “The apostle is praying for freedom from his mortal body which is subject to passions.” But should not the reason why the apostle is praying for this freedom also be added? Rom. 8:10, because “the body is dead because of the sin which dwells in it,” that is, because it would be subject to death, not only temporal but also eternal death, if its sins were not forgiven for Christ’s sake. In the following verse, the apostle teaches that he has this in view: “I give thanks to God through Jesus Christ” [Rom. 7:25]. In Rom. 8:1 he adds the reason why sin which dwells in the flesh does not make devout people subject to eternal death, namely, because they are in Christ through faith and are mortifying the deeds of the flesh through the Spirit. “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit” [Rom. 8:1, 4].

§ 50. (VIII) The eighth argument. He who does good but does not perfect it has not yet fulfilled the Law perfectly. But the apostle testifies about himself and all the reborn: they indeed do good but do not perfect it. Rom. 7:18: “To will is within my power, but I do not discover how to perfect the good.” Therefore they are not yet fulfilling the Law perfectly, on account of adhering concupiscence. As a consequence, the concupiscence which prohibits the perfect fulfillment of the Law is sin.

Bellarmine counters: “For someone to sin by not acting, it is required that he ought to do it and can do it; but not desiring [concupiscere] in the flesh is not within our power.”

We respond. The obligation of the Law must not be evaluated according to the status of man after the fall, but on the basis of the gifts and powers for fulfilling the Law which we understand to have existed in the first man. Surely, through original sin, we are subject to the wretched necessity to sin (as Augustine and Bernard say) so that we are unable not to covet⁷ [concupiscere], nevertheless the rigor of the Law is not lessened, nor is our obligation, on that account. We proved this earlier [§ 44 (6)] with the example of the debtor who was reduced to poverty because of his own fault, and we shall demonstrate this in greater detail in its own place in our article On the Law [Commonplace XV, §§ 181–202].

§ 51. (IX) The ninth argument. Anything that is hostility toward God and anything that is death—that is, the cause of death—is sin. But “the mind of the flesh is hostility toward God” (Rom. 8:7) and “death” (v. 6). Therefore it is sin.

Bellarmine counters: “The word ‘mind’ in this passage does not mean concupiscence itself but the excessive concern and anxiety in providing the things which are pleasing and suited to the flesh, which the apostle removes from himself.” Bellarmine accuses “our rashness” under this charge: that we are “confusing and mixing up everything” and that we are taking our “arguments from those passages which have nothing to do with the subject.”

We respond. “The mind of the flesh” means the affections, senses, intelligence, and wisdom of carnal people who have not yet been reborn, and the affections, interests, and thoughts of the flesh in the reborn themselves. In regard to this mind, the apostle declares that it is “hostility toward God,” that is, that it is not only subject to the Law but also is hostilely opposed to God and to His Law, as the apostle explains himself. The apostle does not totally remove the mind, the affection of the flesh, from himself, because he has already before confessed that he was not yet completely spiritual but was still partly carnal, that is, that he still was to a certain extent under the old flesh (Rom. 7:14). But he denies that he is in the flesh or that he walks according to the flesh; that is, [he denies] that he brings to completion the mind of the flesh. He denies that he indulges in the affection of the flesh but asserts that through the Spirit he is mortifying the desires of the flesh and urges other reborn people to do the very same thing (Gal. 5:24). Therefore since the expression “the mind of the flesh” also includes the first impulses of concupiscence as a certain species, it is not the case that the impulses of a corrupt concupiscence are declared free of enmity against God and the Law of God.

Genesis 6:5: “Every thought of the heart is only wicked.”

§ 52. So that is the prior group of arguments taken from Romans 6–8. The latter class, drawn from other passages of Scripture, comes next. In discussing it we shall also follow the footsteps of Bellarmine.

(I) Gen. 6:5: “Every thought of the heart is only evil at all times,” Gen. 8:21: “from youth.” If the imagination of the human heart is only evil at all times, surely corrupt concupiscence cannot be absolved of the accusation that it is sin.

Bellarmine counters: “The actual sin of those who lived before the flood is being described, because they walked according to the flesh and thought only of the things of the flesh.” Again, where he produces the sort of declaration that completely denies original sin, he says, “That inclination to evil is a wound left over from original sin, but it is not properly sin unless it comes forth in a voluntary action.” Add the rest of the syllogism: “In the case of infants, that inclination does not yet erupt into a voluntary act. Therefore they are without sin, properly speaking.”

We respond. By this statement Moses intended to show the very source of actual sins, namely, what sort of human nature remained after the Spirit of God had been removed, that is, the sort which is completely carnal, as it is of itself and of its own nature after the fall. Also, because the same words are repeated to Noah when he left the ark with his family, it is obvious that they cannot be assigned only to those who lived before the flood but are being said in general about the nature of man after the flood as it is in itself, if considered outside of the regeneration and renewal of the Spirit.

The Hebrew truth reads in this way, Gen. 6:5: (“Every imagination of the thoughts of the heart is only evil every day”). The words are very emphatic.

(1) With the word “heart,” the Holy Spirit in Scripture, and especially in the New Testament, means not only the appetitive but also the rational faculty of the soul,⁸ and for this reason it attributes to the heart not only affections but also intellect and will. From the thoughts which are attributed to the heart, it is clear that the word “heart” is taken in this sense in this passage. For example, in Matt. 15:19, Christ says, “Out of the heart come evil thoughts.”

(2) Therefore Moses attributes to the heart of man and . The former word properly signifies “to shape, to make up, to imagine, to think up” and is attributed to a potter who is shaping a vessel. The latter word means “to think up with the intention of the mind,” διαλoγίζεσθαι. In Exod. 35:32 it is used in reference to the craftsmen of the tabernacle who are creating their handiwork with their unique industriousness. Therefore in these two words all the impulses and thoughts of the heart are embraced, whether they are the first involuntary impulses or whether they are drawn out with singular diligence and intent of the mind. In the same manner these words are joined in the same sense in 1 Chron. 28:9: “The Lord searches every heart and understands every imagination of its thoughts.” It is for this reason that the rabbis generally call corrupt concupiscence (“evil imagination”).

(3) The Holy Spirit calls all these thoughts of the heart “evil,” that is, not in conformity with the Law of God but stained with sin and impelling toward actual sins. For though the word is used at times to refer to the evil of punishment, nevertheless the circumstances of this passage show clearly that it must be understood here to mean the evil of fault, since the Holy Spirit is here engaged in a description of the causes of the flood.

The imagination of thoughts is said to be , “only evil,” which the Latin translator renders too feebly: that the thought of the heart is “intent on evil.” This is also a word both of exclusion and of extenuation according to Förster in his lexicon. Therefore the meaning is that the imagination of thoughts is wholly and always evil, even to the most insignificant impulse.

(5) The evil is continual or, as is explained in Gen. 8:21, , “from his” (man’s) “infancy.” The word is used in Scripture both about a child and an infant. Therefore our infancy first begins it, and, in fact, as soon as our days begin, the imagination of the thoughts of the heart is evil. You see that in these words of Moses the astonishing description of original sin (whose constant, inseparable effect is the corrupt lust of the flesh) is set forth for us. We have been explaining it up to now as we follow the careful lead of Dr. Polycarp [Leyser].

Psalm 19[:12]: “Cleanse me from hidden faults.”

§ 53. (II) In Ps. 19:[12] the psalmist complains: “Who understands his errors? Cleanse me from hidden [faults]”; and in Ps. 51:[10] he asks that a clean heart be created for him. Therefore he is acknowledging the clinging stains of sins and admits that the number of his sins escapes his knowledge.

Bellarmine counters: “These passages in no way pertain to original sin or to concupiscence in the reborn, since in justification all sins are remitted, since concupiscence is not a hidden thing, and since prayer should not be made for the involuntary impulses of concupiscence, according to Augustine (Letter 200). Therefore David is speaking about venial and secret mortal sins.”

We respond. (1) Sin is remitted not in such a way that it does not exist but that it is not imputed—more on this subject in its own place [§§ 67–69].

(2) Corrupt concupiscence is a hidden sin of the heart and is recognized only by the reborn through the light of the divine Law (Ps. 90:8). David knew that corrupt desires [concupiscentias] were sins, but he admits that he does not know how many times he felt those sinful impulses, which two ideas Bellarmine confuses in his sophistry. The reborn understand that they have sin, but they do not know how often and how seriously they have sinned.

(3) Bellarmine will never persuade us that prayer must not be made concerning even the involuntary impulses of corrupt concupiscence, since Moses complains about secret sin (Ps. 90:8); and David, about hidden faults (Ps. 19:[12]); and especially since the apostle (Rom. 7:[23–]24) so wretchedly laments the law of sin which clings to his members.

These are the words of Augustine:

Man begins to be renewed in the inner man according to grace so that he may do in the mind what he loves, and not consent to the flesh which is doing what he hates, that is, that he might not covet [concupiscat] at all, but that he not go after his desires [concupiscentias]. To be sure, this is so great that, if it were done in every respect, and though the desires of sin are in us while we are in the body of this death, nevertheless we would offer our consent to none of them; this would not be why we say to our Father who is in heaven: “Forgive us our debts,” etc. [Matt. 6:12; Luke 11:4].

Augustine is showing that we are so far away from being able to show perfect obedience to the Law about not coveting [non concupiscendo] that we even very often give our consent to corrupt desires [concupiscentiis]. It is for this reason that prayer must be made by us every day for our debts, that is, for the forgiveness even of our daily actual sins. Thus on the basis of this hypothesis, one which is indeed naturally impossible in this life, Augustine does not pronounce absolutely that prayer should not be made for the forgiveness of the impulses of corrupt concupiscence, which he elsewhere testifies are clearly forbidden with the law. How, then, could he simply and absolutely say that prayer should not be made for their forgiveness?

Moreover, Augustine elsewhere bears clear witness that this prayer should be made daily because of the adhering defects and remnants of original sin: “Forgive us our debts.” For thus he writes (Letter 29): “So long as love can be increased, surely that which is less than it ought to be is from vice, because of which vice there is not a just person on earth who does good and does not sin [cf. Eccl. 7:20]. Because of this vice, if we say that we have no sin, we are liars, etc. [cf. 1 John 1:8]. On account of this, every time we commit it, it is necessary for us to say, ‘Forgive us our debts,’ though all our words, deeds, and thoughts have already been forgiven.” Augustine again (Sermon 2 de verb. apost.): “You say that it is enough for me that I receive the remission of all my sins in Baptism. But is my weakness ended because my iniquity is blotted out? You still are carrying the frail flesh, etc. You are surely still saying until your weaknesses are cured: ‘Forgive us our debts.’”

Jeremiah 17[:9]: “The heart of man is corrupt.”

§ 54. (III) Jer. 17:9–10: “The heart of man is corrupt and perverse, who will understand it? I the Lord examine the heart and test the reins [renes].” Here he is claiming so great a corruption and perversity of the heart in people that not even he himself can understand it completely. Who will deny that this is sin?

Bellarmine counters: (1) “A corrupt heart is not a heart defiled with sins but is a cunning heart and difficult to penetrate, because the expression in Hebrew is , which the Septuagint translators have rendered as βαθεῖα καρδία [“a deep heart”].”

We respond. Bellarmine will have to fear the thunderbolt of the Council of Trent if he wishes to depart from the Vulgate version, which nevertheless is not unfitting here. The word is taken from “sole” or “heel,” and thus describes the corruption of the human heart with a metaphor taken from a road which is frequently traveled and consequently becomes beaten down, rough, and hard, but which is also ruined by the treading. Jerome translates it “corrupt”; the Targum and rabbis, “crafty and deceitful”; Münster, “perverse”—just as in Ezek. 36:26 it is called “a stony heart,” and in Rom. [2:5], “a hard heart.” In Mark 16:14; Rom. 11:25; and Eph. 4:18 it is called πώρωσις, as if to say “callousness of the heart.” Thus the prophet is complaining that from the beginning man was indeed created upright by God but was deprived of that uprightness through sin, and that the depravity of the heart took its place.

Second, he says the heart of man is (“wretched”); Junius and Tremellius, “death-bringing”; Münster, “stubborn and hopeless,” to signify that this evil is incurable, an illness without hope of a cure. Jer. 15:18: “My wound has become incurable.” Mic. 1:9: “Hopeless is her wound.” According to the interpretation of Dr. Chemnitz (Loci, p. 574): “Thus this is a very sad description of original sin. It is without hope of a cure, not by nature nor by medicine nor by any healing work. It cannot be removed unless it is swallowed up by death. It is a mortal ill (1 Cor. 15:53).”

Finally, the heart is said to be corrupt (“above all things”) and, in fact, beyond what can be known or thought. For this reason Symmachus translates it ἀνεξερεύνηταν [“unsearchable”]. In fact, it is so corrupt and perverse above all things that no one except God, the searcher of hearts, knows its perversity sufficiently. Therefore it is vain that Bellarmine says that it is not the heart defiled with sin that is here described but only the heart which is cunning and difficult to penetrate. But are not cleverness for evil and hardness of heart truly corruption and sin?

(2) He says, “Here only the inclination to evil, which is not properly sin, is being attributed to the heart.”

We respond. How is the heart’s profound corruption and prone inclination to evil not sin, since it is like the seed of all sins, embracing in itself every potentiality [of sin]? Poisoned streams bear witness to the poison of the spring.

(3) Finally, he adds: “The prophet is speaking about the wicked, whose heart is truly corrupt and unclean, since, on the contrary, the reborn are said to be clean of heart (Matt. 5[:8], their hearts purified by faith (Acts 15[:9]. The end of the Law is said to be love from a pure heart (1 Tim. 1[:5]).”

We respond. The context of the prophet’s words clearly demonstrates that the prophet is speaking not only about people manifestly wicked and of a profligate impiety but about all people in general. In [Jer. 17:]5 he says, “Cursed is the one who trusts in man”; in v. 7: “Blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord.” In vv. 9 and 10 he adds that man’s heart is so corrupt and inscrutable that it does not wish to appear as if it does not trust in God, but he says that God searches the heart and tries the mind. In fact, he even includes himself in this description, v. 14: “Heal me, O Lord, and I shall be healed; save me, and I shall be saved.” Thus he describes the human heart such as it was by its own nature, from its very beginning, before it was regenerated and cleansed through the Spirit; or when it lost the Spirit and was left to itself; or, if it should be considered of itself, in the reborn themselves outside of the renewal of the Spirit. For even though the hearts of the reborn are purified by faith—that is, even though the perfect purity of Christ is imputed by faith to the reborn and even though the Holy Spirit purifies, cleanses, and heals the hearts of the reborn through renewal—nevertheless that renewal, purifying, and healing are never so perfect in this life that they must not be increased and perfected daily. It is for this reason that some “hardness of heart” (Mark 16:14) and “slowness to believe” (Luke 24:25) are still attributed to the disciples of Christ (who surely were reborn and renewed through the Holy Spirit). Although the reborn are in general clean and holy, nevertheless they are commanded to cleanse themselves “from every defilement of flesh and spirit and to perfect sanctification” (2 Cor. 7:1). They are, and are called, “unleavened” (1 Cor. 5:7), and yet are ordered to “purge out the old leaven.” They have been renewed through the Spirit of God, yet they are commanded to be “renewed in the spirit of their minds” (Eph. 4:23) and “to put on the new man who was created after the likeness of God” (v. 24).

Matthew 6[:12]: “Forgive us our debts.”

§ 55. (IV) The Lord’s Prayer includes all people under sin. For whoever prays that the Lord’s name be hallowed, that God’s kingdom come, and that the will of God be done [Matt. 6:9–11] is by that very prayer confessing that he is not yet completely doing the will of God, that he is still partly corrupting the name of God, and that he is partly the servant of the devil because of sin. This is the argument of Dr. Luther (Assert. art. 2, Oper., Latin, vol. 2, f. 297).⁹

Bellarmine counters: “This is an extremely foolish objection since, according to Cyprian, this prayer deals only with perseverance in sanctification and with the kingdom of glory, and our prayer that God’s will be done properly applies to unbelievers. The fact that in Matt. 26[:39] Christ prays that the will of God be done also urges this.”

We respond. Anyone who prays that the name of God be hallowed, that the kingdom of God come, and that the will of God be done in such a way that he simultaneously prays that his debts be forgiven him thereby confesses that he is not hallowing God’s name and fulfilling His will fully and in every respect. Yet all the reborn pray in such a way that God’s name be hallowed, etc. Bellarmine cites the explanation of Cyprian (Expos. orat. Domin.); therefore let him listen to it.

We pray and implore that we who have been sanctified in Baptism may persevere in that which we have begun, and we pray for this every day. We have a need for daily sanctification

(Bellarmine omits this.)

in order that we who sin every day may wash away our sins by zealous sanctification.

And later:

There is need for unceasing entreaty and prayer that we not fall away from the heavenly kingdom as the Jews, to whom it had first been promised, fell away, etc. We pray that we do what God wills because the devil blocks us so that our mind and actions are not obedient to God in every detail. We pray and implore that the will of God be done in us. That this may be done in us we need the will of God, that is, His aid and protection, because no one is strong by his own might but is protected by the kindness and mercy of God.

And later:

We ask that the will of God be done on earth as it is in heaven because both pertain to the completion of our will and salvation. For since we possess our body from the earth and our spirit from heaven, we ourselves are earth and heaven, and we pray that in both—that is, in body and in spirit—the will of God be done. For there is a daily wrestling and contesting between flesh and spirit, incongruous and opposing each other, so that we do not do the very things which we wish: the spirit seeking heavenly and divine things, while the flesh lusts after terrestrial and secular things. And thus we pray zealously that the help and aid of God would create a harmony between these two that the soul may be preserved while both spirit and flesh (which is tested by God) are doing the will of God. Finally, we are admonished most necessarily, providentially, and wholesomely that we who are sinners are, because of our sins, compelled to pray that, while the indulgence of God is sought, the mind of our conscience would remember, lest anyone become pleasing to himself as if innocent and perish by extolling himself too much: let it be instructed and taught that it sins daily while it is commanded to pray for its sins daily.

All this is from Cyprian and wonderfully gives its approval to the argument of Dr. Luther drawn from the Lord’s Prayer. See also the most beautiful exposition of Hieronymus Savonarola which he wrote about the Lord’s Prayer.

Luke 10: A wounded person is healed gradually.

§ 56. (V) In Matthew 13 and Luke 10, Christ shows in parables that man is not freed from all sin immediately but gradually, and that, because of this, some sin remains to be cleansed.

Bellarmine counters: “When Scripture teaches that a person is cured and makes progress gradually, it is not speaking about the forgiveness of sins but about the healing of a weakness left because of sin.”

We respond. But the weakness of the nature, the corrupt concupiscence, is an ailment of the mind and is therefore surely sin. The weakness is the privation of the due health. The health of the soul was uprightness, integrity, and complete conformity with the Law. Therefore what sort of evil and ailment this evil is can be recognized very correctly from the opposite condition [habitus]. An ailment of the body is merely the evil of punishment, but an ailment of the soul is both the evil of fault and the evil of punishment. (See Augustine, Sermon 2 de verb. apostoli.)

John 15[:2]: The branch that bears fruit is pruned.

§ 57. (VI) Christ says that the disciples must be pruned (John 15:2). Nevertheless He had said that they were clean (John 13:10). Therefore the inherent cleanness in this life is imperfect.

Bellarmine counters: “Cleansing in the justified is necessary because of actual sins which creep in every day, and not because of original sin, which is completely remitted [remittitur] in Baptism.”

We respond. On the contrary, daily sins are the fruits of original sin and offer open testimony about it. Indeed, original sin is forgiven [remittitur] completely in Baptism, but nevertheless it is not removed in such a way that absolutely nothing of it remains left in the flesh. [Ius canonicum,] De consecrat., dist. 4, c. Per baptismum: “Sin is remitted in Baptism not so that it does not exist, but so that it is not imputed,” from Augustine (De nupt. et concup., bk. 1, ch. 34). We shall treat this subject in greater detail in our article On Baptism [Commonplace XXIII, §§ 128–64].

Augustine (on John, tract. 80): “Who is there in this world who is so clean that he does not need to be cleansed more and more? ‘If we say here that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to cleanse us from all iniquity’ [1 John 1:8–9].” Therefore, on account of indwelling sin, our cleanness is not yet perfect and absolute in every detail.

Hilary (on Matthew 7): “When He said, ‘If you who are evil know how to give good gifts to your children,’ etc. [Matt. 7:11], the Lord taught that the apostles, though cleansed and sanctified now by the word of faith, did not lack evil through the condition of origin common to us.” Augustine (Contra Julian., bk. 2) cites these words of Hilary. Therefore, on account of “the condition of common origin”—that is, on account of the remnants of original sin—the apostles were still partly evil and unclean.

Galatians 5[:17]: The flesh lusts against the Spirit.

§ 58. (VII) Gal. 5:17: “The flesh lusts [concupiscit] against the Spirit.” If the flesh still lusts against the Spirit in the reborn, then sin is surely still dwelling in their flesh.

Bellarmine counters: “This concupiscence is not properly sin while the Spirit is wrestling with it, because it exists only in the flesh, which cannot be the seat of sin.”

We respond. Bellarmine is clearly contradicting both himself and the apostolic text. He writes (De amiss. grat. et statu pecc., bk. 5, ch. 7, in response to argument 2): “In many passages of Holy Scripture the word ‘flesh’ undoubtedly means all the powers, inferior as well as superior, which have been corrupted through sin. This is why we also see in Gal. 5[:20] that heresy is listed among the works of the flesh,” etc. He clearly contradicts this here, when he takes the word “flesh” to mean the body alone, which, he thinks, cannot properly be the seat of sin because sin must not be sought in the flesh but in the mind. Therefore Bellarmine includes three false statements in these few words: (1) That the concupiscence of the flesh is not sin when the Spirit wrestles against it.

(2) That corrupt concupiscence is not in the mind but only in the flesh, since in this passage the apostle clearly attributes to the flesh such ailments as only fit the mind.

(3) That the flesh is not the seat of sin, even though original righteousness, the lack of which is sin, has a seat in the entire person. But now, deprivation and disposition [habitus] exist in the same subject. We shall say more about this topic later when we examine the arguments of Bellarmine [§ 74]. Stapleton (Antidot., Rom. 7:17, p. 394) writes more correctly: “ ‘Flesh’ seems to be able to mean either the inferior, carnal appetite which fights against the mind and superior reason or some carnal, inordinate affection in the mind itself and the superior reason.” In fact, Bellarmine himself opines more correctly in ch. 15 of this book where he says:

It must not be denied that we also find a similar fault

(of the corrupt concupiscence)

in the superior part. For this part of the soul is also prone to desiring [concupiscendos] honors, empty glory, and other vanities; and, despite our unwillingness, it sometimes produces desires of this sort. Wherefore when the blessed Paul said in Galatians 5

(Note this!)

that the flesh lusted [concupiscere] against the Spirit, he immediately listed the works of the flesh and named not only fornication, drunkenness, and others of that sort but also idolatry, heresy, enmity, etc. Augustine (De civ. Dei, bk. 14, chs. 2–4) noted this carefully, and he proves that flesh is at times used for the entire person such as it is without the grace of God after the fall of Adam, etc. Thus, though the vice of concupiscence has a seat especially in sensuality, yet it also has one in the mind. Therefore, in his books against the Pelagians, St. Augustine is almost everywhere speaking about the sin of sensuality because this sin reveals itself more in sensuality, and not because he was unaware of the fact that it also had a place in the mind.

Those are Bellarmine’s words, who opposes himself so much that there is no need for a detailed response.

Ephesians 4[:23]: The reborn are ordered to be renewed in the spirit of their mind.

§ 59. (VIII) In Eph. 4:23 the reborn are ordered to be “renewed in the spirit of their mind.” Therefore they are still partly under sin and the old flesh.

(1) Bellarmine counters: “ ‘Old flesh’ must be understood as the evils left over from sin, but not as original sin, because Augustine (Contra Julian., bk. 6, ch. 5) says clearly that grace makes man completely new.”

We respond. The evil left in us from the first sin of our first parents is original sin itself, remnants of which remain also in the reborn because the nature of their origin has been retained. Imagine that “old flesh” means only the evil of punishment which resulted from the first sin of Adam and which has been propagated into us. Will you not actually be denying original sin? Augustine (loc. cit.) does say that a person is renewed perfectly, but he explains himself clearly: this prevails as far as liberation from absolutely all sins is concerned, but not liberation from all evils. For in the same place he explains in greater detail in what sense he wants this to be taken:

Why is the flesh mortified by the faithful if nothing remains after Baptism to lust [concupiscat] against the Spirit? Why does the very temple of God mortify itself if there is nothing to resist the Spirit of God? But if the guilt which had bound us had not been destroyed through the forgiveness of sins, it would not only be in us but also would harm us seriously.

And later:

But who is so imprudent; so impudent; so insolent, obstinate, and headstrong; and, finally, so totally mad and demented as to deny that the concupiscence of sins is evil when he admits that sins are evil? Even if it is not allowed to conceive and bring forth sins while the Spirit desires against it,

(What sort of an evil is it? Take note, Bellarmine!)

yet since it is such and so great an evil only because it is within, how would it not hold one in death and draw him into the ultimate death if its bonds were not unshackled in the remission of all sins which occurs in Baptism?

Augustine again (De pecc. merit. et remiss., bk. 2, ch. 7):

If in the very heart—that is, the inner man—a perfect newness were to occur in Baptism, the apostle would not be saying this. Although our exterior man is corrupted, nevertheless the inner man is renewed from day to day, for surely he who is renewed from day to day [2 Cor. 4:16] is still not completely renewed insofar as he is still under the old flesh and because of the remnants of that old flesh.

In the same place Augustine says: “There must also be a groaning within the reborn themselves: ‘If we say that we have no sin’ [1 John 1:8],” etc. Therefore let it remain firmly fixed that the old flesh which still remains in part of the reborn is not only the evil of punishment but also the evil of fault; for through the regeneration of a person it does not stop existing at all or being that which it was before regeneration, but rather ceases making a person guilty in actuality.

Elsewhere the old flesh is called “the old man” (Rom. 6:6), and to it are attributed “desires of deceit” (Eph. 4:22). It is also called “the old leaven” (1 Cor. 5:8), to which malice and wickedness are attributed. All this clearly shows that the old flesh is the evil not only of punishment but also of fault.

(2) Therefore Bellarmine also counters:

That oldness must also be taken to mean actual sins and evil dispositions [habitus] contracted from them, and in this sense in Col. 3:9 the reborn are ordered to take off the old man with his deeds, and in Eph. 4:22 they are commanded to put off the old man which belongs to their original way of life. This is later explained to mean that they should put aside lying.

We respond. In this and similar statements it is shown in what way the old man can and should be put aside, namely, by resisting corrupt desires [concupiscentiae] and by mortifying them, but nowhere is it taught that the term “the old man” must mean only actual sins. In fact, the mandate to take off the old man and to renew the spirit of the mind is perpetual, and there is no time in this life when the reborn will not need these exhortations. This clearly proves that the “old man” (which elsewhere is called “the flesh,” “the old Adam,” “the concupiscence of the flesh,” etc.) must be understood as something habitual and perpetually inherent.

Augustine writes (De Trin., bk. 14, ch. 17): “The renewal” (which he had discussed in the previous chapter on the basis of Ephesians 4 and Colossians 3) “does not occur in the single moment of conversion in the same way as renewal in Baptism happens in one moment by the remission of all sins. Rather, the first cure is to remove the cause of the weakness; this happens through the forgiveness of all sins. The second cure is to heal the weakness itself; this happens gradually by progressing in the renewal of this image,” etc.

Colossians 3[:5]: “Mortify your members on earth.”

§ 60. (IX) The reborn are commanded to mortify the members of the old Adam, Col. 3:5: “Mortify your members which are on the earth: fornication, impurity, passion, evil desire [concupiscentia], and avarice.” Therefore sin is surely still dwelling in their flesh.

Bellarmine counters: “‘Members on the earth’ means the corrupt concupiscence which in Rom. 7:23 is called ‘the law of the members.’ This is to be mortified in such a way that assent is not given to it.”

We respond. Quite right, but what else will follow from it except that in the reborn there still survives something of the old man which must be mortified and crucified? Therefore, just as the body of sin is ordered to be destroyed (Rom. 6:6) so that we are not slaves to sin, so also in this passage the members which are on earth are ordered to be mortified; that is, there must be resistance to the corrupt affections of the flesh with all the power of the mind, nor should sin be permitted to rule within us. Therefore sin surely clings in the heart; the members of the old man surely are still moving in the reborn.

Augustine (Contra Julian., bk. 6, ch. 5): “How does” (the reborn person) “obey the apostle when he says, ‘Mortify fornication’? [In no other way] except that he fights against his desires, to which he does not consent. Even if those desires are not absent in those who do well and do not at all fornicate either by consent or action, nevertheless they diminish daily.” In the same place he shows in many ways that these desires are sin.

Hebrews 12[:1]: “Put aside sin which surrounds.”

§ 61. (X) In Heb. 12:1 the reborn are ordered to put aside sin which surrounds; therefore sin surely dwells in their flesh.

Bellarmine counters:

“Sin which surrounds” cannot mean corrupt concupiscence, which indeed cannot be put aside. Rather, it means something extrinsic, namely, the opportunities and perils of sin or sins themselves which lie in wait for us everywhere. These are said to be εὐπερίστατα [Heb. 12:1] because they surround and besiege us readily, and, as they encircle us, they are contrasted to a cloud of holy examples.

We respond. According to Varinus, περίστασις means “tribulation introduced from every side, causing anguish,” [that is,] evils which assail on every side. Therefore εὐπερίστατoς ἁμαρτία is that sin which has occupied all one’s might, all his members, and thus the entire person. Thus it is correctly translated by Erasmus as “sin which clings tenaciously.” The prefix εὐ is used as an intensifier: “powerfully and strongly.” Others translate it as “surrounding us easily,” something which also explains the nature of original sin, for it always tries to hold us captive and subjugate us unless we resist strongly. For this reason the apostle: (1) Calls it a burden or weight, because it weighs down the human nature created after the image of God. It also burdens and slows down his actions, making them inclined toward evil and slow toward good.

(2) He teaches that there must be a struggle against this sin. In fact, the law of sin in our members is at war with the law of the mind in the reborn and captivates them (tries to captivate them) (Rom. 7:23).

(3) He calls itεὐπερίστατoς ἁμαρτία [“easily besetting sin”] because it sweeps over all the powers and faculties of a person and clings to them very tenaciously. The apostle orders people to put this sin aside as regards the pursuit, attempt, and desire of the reborn, though it cannot be put aside perfectly in this life as far as actuality is concerned, just as we are ordered to take off and put aside the old man (Eph. 4:22; Col. 3:9), which nevertheless cannot be done perfectly by us in this life. Bellarmine says: “ ‘Surrounding sin’ means something extrinsic”; but a little later he adds: “This expression means intrinsic temptations.” (Unless perhaps there is a typographic error.) Following Thomas Aquinas he writes: “The opportunities and perils of sin are denoted in this passage.” Nevertheless these are not said to be put aside in the proper sense, because only that is put aside which weighs us down and oppresses us like a burden.

James 1[:18]: “That we should be a kind of beginning of His creation.”

§ 62. (XI) James 1:18: “God brought us forth by the word of truth that we should be a kind of beginning of His creation.” Therefore we are not yet perfectly new creatures, but the remnants of sin remain in our flesh in this life.

Bellarmine counters: (1) “Luther is philosophizing ignorantly in claiming that the reason we are said to be a beginning is that we are justified incompletely and that sin always remains in us in some part.”

We respond. This is obvious calumny. Nowhere does Luther say that we are justified incompletely. Rather, he says that our inherent righteousness is imperfect because of adhering sin.

(2) “The word ἀπαρχή does not mean ‘beginning,’ but ‘primary’ or ‘chief.’ Accordingly, James means that the saints are the firstfruits, that is, an utterly perfect part of creation.”

We respond. Bellarmine is putting himself in jeopardy of the anathema of Trent when he departs from the Vulgate version. We connect Rom. 8:23 to this passage, where the reborn “receive the firstfruits of the Spirit”—not the perfect fullness but only the firstfruits. Therefore their holiness in this life is imperfect (the holiness being understood as inherent). In Rom. 11:16 the word ἀπαρχή means firstfruits offered according to Levitical law for the sanctification of the whole crop. In Rom. 16:5 and 1 Cor. 16:15, Epaenetus is called “the firstfruit of Achaia” because he was the first of the Achaians to have been converted to Christ. Explaining it regarding a chief and more worthy part has no place here.

(3) “From Luther’s opinion it follows that Christ rose only inchoately and not completely, because He is said to be ‘the firstfruits of those who are rising again’ (1 Cor. 15:20).”

We respond. Christ is not called the firstfruits of those who are rising again because He is the most important among those who have risen again (something which nevertheless is very true) but with regard to rank, cause, virtue, and merit. For the fact that others rise must be considered a share in the resurrection of Christ. The word ἀπαρχή refers to the Law of Moses concerning the offering of the firstfruits by which the whole crop was sanctified. Therefore the apostle means: if Christ avoided death as a firstfruit, surely the rest of the people grafted into Christ will not always be liable to death and corruption but, just as in the case of the firstfruits, they will be gathered into the granary of eternal life as fruit which pleases God. This is the way the apostle explains himself in [1 Cor. 15:]23: “Each in his own order: Christ, the firstfruits, then at His coming those who belong to Christ.”

1 John 1[:8]: “If we say we have no sin,” etc.

§ 63. (XII) 1 John 1:8: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” Therefore in all the reborn sin still exists, though it has been forgiven and mortified.

Bellarmine counters: (1) “John is speaking about tiny, daily, actual sins.”

We respond. He is speaking about both the remnants of original sin and daily sins of weakness which are the fruits and sprouts of original sin. He carefully says that the reborn do have sin. Therefore he is properly speaking about sin which is ἑκτικός, so to speak, that is, habitual and perpetually inhering in the reborn even when they are unaware of actual sins. Augustine (Letter 29 ad Hieronym.) clearly applies this statement not only to actual sins but also to the remnants of original sin in the reborn: “Who is without some sin? Who is there without some fault, that is, without some kindling, or as if without the root of sin, though he may be lying in the bosom of the Lord? ‘If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.’” (See also Contra duas epist. Pelag., bk. 4, ch. 10; on John, tract. 41; etc.)

(2) Bellarmine adds: “It is possible for someone to be without sin, even venial sin, at least for a short time. Yet because Job is correct in saying, ‘If I have been a just man, my soul will not know this’ ([cf.] Job 9[:21]), thus no man can affirm about himself that he does not have sin. For this reason John is correct in not saying, ‘If we say that someone does not have sin,’ but rather ‘If we say we have no sin.’”

We respond. The apostle’s statement is utterly true at all times and for all the saints without exception: “If we say that we do not have sin, we deceive ourselves.” That is why Scripture elsewhere declares in general that no one is innocent before God, that no one can boast about the purity of his heart, that all are forced to pray: “Lord, forgive us our debts,” etc. Augustine condemns the Pelagian opinion that some people have been excepted from this universal pronouncement of the apostle so often and so seriously in his books Contra Julianum, Contra duas epist. Pelag., and in many other places that it seems strange for Bellarmine to bring it again into the forefront of the church. It is also Pelagian to say that we must confess having sin more out of humility than out of truth. Augustine (De nat. et grat., chs. 34 and 36) writes correctly about this:

For this reason John adds “and the truth is not in us,” though it perhaps would have been enough to say “we deceive ourselves,” if he had not noticed that some people thought that the words “we deceive ourselves” are here because a person who praises himself is puffed up even in regard to a truly good deed. Thus note that “and the truth is not in us” shows clearly that it is not at all true if we say that we have no sin, lest humility, placed at the side of falsehood, lose the reward of truth…. If we were able to assemble all the holy men and women and ask them if they lived without sin while they were living here, what do we think their answer would be? Would it be that which he

(Pelagius)

says, or what the apostle John says? I ask you: regardless of the excellence of holiness they may have had in this body, if they could have been asked this, would they have exclaimed unanimously: “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,” etc., or would they perhaps be answering more humbly than truthfully? But it already pleases, and correctly pleases, this fellow not to place the praise of humility at the side of falsehood. So if they are speaking the truth, they have sin, they confess it humbly, the truth is in them. But if they were lying in this, they would still have sin because the truth would not be in them.

Job’s statement is quoted by Bellarmine ineptly. Its genuine meaning is this: God is oppressing me with such great terrors that the things that could be offered in defense of my righteousness do not come to my mind.

(3) Bellarmine finally concludes: “Chemnitz shows that he is very foolish in this, because he applies this opinion also to babies and to people who are sleeping, though the apostle is speaking only about those who can speak, that is, those who have the use of speech and of reason.”

We respond. But truly Bellarmine is a Pelagian when he denies that this universal declaration of the apostle pertains also to babies and to people who are sleeping. From this it quickly follows that there are many people, namely, the reborn, who though not yet adult can boast that they have no sin; and that reborn adults are very often without sin, namely, when they are sleeping and are not actually staining themselves with actual sin, when their concupiscence is at rest, or when they are resisting it in such a way that it does not yet snatch up their will into consent. On the other hand, St. Augustine declares that this is the voice of all the saints. The apostle requires of reborn adults that they confess that they have sin, yet he is not denying that people have sin if they lack the use of speech and of reason and cannot yet confess.

The testimonies of the ancients that concupiscence is sin.

§ 64. We come now to the testimonies of antiquity. Although we could assign many statements of the ancient fathers to this point—namely, those in which they teach that sin still dwells in the reborn, that the Law of God cannot be perfectly fulfilled by us in this life, that good works are not perfect and absolute in every detail, that no one is without sin, etc.—nevertheless we will be content with those statements in which they call the concupiscence left in the reborn “sin” and attribute to it the sort of things which, properly speaking, fit sin alone.

Augustine (Contra Julian., bk. 2.) cites the testimonies of Cyprian, Hilary, Nazianzen, and Ambrose; therefore we shall listen to him. The more carefully we do this, the more upset Bellarmine becomes that we possess their unanimity. For this reason he is unafraid to write: “Undoubtedly Chemnitz is going to suffer unending punishments in hell for his impudent wickedness in perverting the words of Cyprian and Hilary.”

Ambrose (Contra Novatianos): “All of us men were born under sin; Paul himself was born of men in sin; thus his flesh was the body of death.”

From these words Augustine draws the following conclusion:

Was Paul not baptized? Or did he not have some original sins or some of his own sins? Had he not been forgiven sins of ignorance or knowledge? Why, then, would he say such things? The law of sin which is in the members of the body of this death has also been forgiven by spiritual regeneration and remains in the mortal flesh, forgiven, that is, because guilt is removed in the sacrament by which the faithful are reborn. But [sin] remains, because it creates desires against which believers also wage war, etc. He

(the apostle)

knew that we are cleansed by grace from the impulse of concupiscence. We are saved from its original guilt by a spiritual rebirth.

Augustine contrasts these words to the argument of the Pelagians that “it appears to be the consequence that, if some evil remains in baptized spouses, from whom evil people are born, not all sins are remitted in Baptism.” Augustine is responding on the basis of Ambrose that Paul also had been baptized, and yet complains about the law of sin; thus concupiscence is remitted in terms of guilt but remains in actuality.

Cyprian (Letter de orat. Dom.): “Between the flesh and the Spirit there is a mutual, daily wrestling and battling, so that we do not do the very things we want to do. While the Spirit is seeking heavenly and divine things, the flesh is lusting [concupiscit] after earthly and secular things.”

Augustine points out that “Cyprian is instructing a baptized people to ask God for harmony between the flesh and the Spirit, which is nonetheless not completed in this life because, according to the same Cyprian (Letter de mortal.), the apostle Paul wants to meet his end and be with Christ so that he may be subject to no sins and vices of the flesh” [cf. Phil. 1:22–23].

Gregory [Nazianzen] writes (Apolog.): “Within our very selves we are being attacked by our own vices and passions. Day and night we are pressed hard by the burning goads of the body of this humility and the body of death.” Augustine again bids us to observe that “Gregory is speaking in reference to a baptized person, that he is assaulted by his own sins,” and he adds:

Do you now see,

(Julianus,)

do you now perceive, do you now understand that in Baptism there is a remission of all sins and that there remains with the baptized something like a civil war of inner vices? For the vices are not the sort which must be termed “sins”

(Understand these as connected with actual guilt, as Augustine explains himself in De nupt. et concup., bk. 1, ch. 24, and in many other places.)

if concupiscence does not draw the spirit to unlawful works and conceive and give birth to sin. They are not only outside us, etc. They are ours; they are passions; they are vices; they must be bridled, restrained, cleansed; and while we live in this life, they do not cease to exist. The venerable Hilary does not hesitate to say that all flesh is from sin.

(Augustine goes on and, on the basis of the ancients, proves his point against the Pelagians:)

The baptized are at war against the evil with which they were born and not the evils which they did of themselves because of the evil custom of their former life.

Ambrose (commentary on Luke, p. 58) says, “The dissent between heart and soul has, through the transgression of the first man, embedded itself into man’s nature.” In De Isaac et anima: “A good horseman reins in and calls bad horses back and urges good horses on. There are four good horses: prudence, temperance, fortitude, righteousness; and four bad horses: wrath, concupiscence, fear, iniquity.” From this Augustine draws the following conclusion:

We universally understand those horses as our vices which resist the law of the mind in accord with the law of sin. Why have they not been lost in Baptism? Or will you not yet confess that their guilt has perished but that their weakness remains? Not the guilt in which they themselves had become guilty, but that in which we had made ourselves guilty in evil works, into which they had drawn us. Nor did the weakness remain in such a way as some animals are weakened. Rather, they themselves are our weakness. Nor should it be thought that the iniquity which is destroyed in Baptism is meant by those bad horses, for that is the iniquity of the sins which we committed. They have all been forgiven and no longer exist at all. Their guilt remains, when they were committed and when they passed. But the law of sin of this remaining guilt was forgiven at the sacred font; for this reason he called it “iniquity,” because it is iniquitous that the flesh lusts [concupiscat] against the spirit, no matter how present righteousness might be in our renewal, in which it is just that the spirit strives [concupiscat] against the flesh.

[Ambrose] again (De paradiso, ch. 12): “If you understand it as pleasure, it is something opposed to the divine command and hostile to our senses. That is why St. Paul says, ‘I see another law in my members at war with the law of my mind and holding me prisoner in the law of sin’ [Rom. 7:23].” From this passage Augustine draws this conclusion: “It is obvious what kind of pleasure that teacher says it is, because, in order that we may understand, he cites the testimony of the apostle, who says, ‘I see another law in my members,’ etc. This is pleasure.”

The same author [Ambrose] (De sacram. regenerationis): “It is not enough that vices die unless the pleasures of the body waste away and the links of all the carnal bonds are broken, etc. Let no one flatter himself, for we do not do what we want to do, but do what we hate [Rom. 7:15]. Sin works many things in us, and very often pleasures are reborn and rise up in us despite our resistance. We must wrestle against the flesh; Paul wrestled against it.” Augustine adds:

Note well, Julianus, how, due to this law of sin, the concupiscence of the flesh and the pleasure which is contrary to the intent of the will perform their own passions when aroused, even if they do not complete their actions since they are restrained. Note well how every man is born from this law of sin, and thus brings with him original sin. St. Ambrose says this in the same book De regeneratione.

The same author [Ambrose] (commentary on Isaiah): “We should see that no regeneration of ours occurs after the course of this life. For just as it is called a regeneration of washing through which the filth of sin is wiped away, [and] we are renewed in regeneration when the Son of Man is seated, so it appears to be called regeneration through which we are regenerated for eternal life, purified from every bodily stain on our concreated [nature], when the understanding of the soul is cleansed.” From these words Augustine draws the following conclusion:

This holy and truthful man has distinguished the justification of this life which takes place through the washing of regeneration from the perfection of that life when our bodies will have been renewed with immortality, etc. You Pelagians want man to be perfected here. And would that it were by the gift of God and not by the free will—or, rather, by the will bound to its own desire! Surely justification is granted to us in this life according to these three things: first, by the washing of regeneration by which all sins are remitted; second, by a battle with the vices from whose guilt we have been absolved; third, when our prayer is heard in which we say, “Forgive us our debts.”

Let us listen to that most victorious martyr Cyprian (in his Letter de mortalit.): “Our battle is with avarice, shamelessness, anger, ambition; our zealous and troublesome wrestling is with carnal vices, with the enticements of the world. Man’s mind is besieged and surrounded on all sides by the attacks of the devil and scarcely stands up against each one, scarcely resists them. If avarice is knocked flat, lust springs up. If lust is crushed, ambition takes its place. If ambition is held in contempt, wrath provokes, pride inflates itself, drunkenness attracts, envy breaks harmony, jealousy cuts apart friendship,” etc. From this passage Augustine draws this conclusion:

Cyprian was not greedy nor shameless nor ambitious, etc., because he strongly resisted these wicked impulses which come partly from his origin and partly from habit, nor did he agree to be what they tried to make him be. Nor indeed was he smitten by some hostile weapon in so laborious and burdensome a struggle when he said in his Letter de eleemosynis: “Let no one flatter himself over having a pure and spotless heart such that he depends upon his own innocence and thinks that medicine need not be applied to his wounds, since it is written: ‘Who shall boast that he has a clean heart, or who will boast that he is clean of sins’ [cf. Prov. 20:9]? Again, in his Epistle, John lays it down and says, ‘If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves’ [1 John 1:8]. But if no one can be without sin, and whoever says that he is blameless is either prideful or foolish, how necessary and how kind is the divine clemency which, since it knows that those who have been healed do not lack for wounds afterward, has at last given salutary remedies to cure and heal the wounds.”

Hear also most blessed Hilary, where he hopes for the perfection of man: “The Law teaches that in this dwelling place of the earthly and mortal body we cannot be pure unless we receive cleansing through the washing of heavenly mercy, after the change of the resurrection of our earthly body, our nature being made more glorious.” Again, he says in the same sermon: “Although the very apostles had been cleansed and sanctified by the word of faith, He taught that they nevertheless did not lack evil through the condition of origin common also to us, saying, ‘If you, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children’ [Matt. 7:11].” Augustine adds: “You see in what way the venerable, catholic debater does not deny our cleansing in this life, and yet hopes for human perfection, that is, for a [human] nature of a more complete cleansing at the final resurrection.”

The same [Hilary] in a homily on the Book of Job says: “You recall and are aware that our very bodies are the material for all vices because of which we are corrupted and defiled and because of which we find nothing clean, nothing innocent, within ourselves. Let us rejoice to be their foe, and let us fight in the battle against them.” In his explanation of Psalm 1, he says that the vices of our nature carry us to sin. Augustine adds: “He accuses the faults with which we are born,” etc. “Our nature is damaged by the transgression of the first man.”

Hilary, on Psalm 51: “The works of righteousness are themselves insufficient for the merit of perfect blessedness, unless the mercy of God in this will of righteousness also does not impute the faults of human fickleness and impulses.” Augustine adds: “Do you see that this man of God belongs to that number of the blessed of whom it has been said, ‘Blessed is the man to whom the Lord has not imputed sin’ [Ps. 32:2; Rom. 4:8]? For he also confesses the sins of the just, asserting that they place their hope in the mercy of God rather than placing confidence in their own righteousness.”

§ 65. From all this it is apparent that the ancients cited by Augustine against the Pelagians call the concupiscence which remains in the reborn: (1) sin; (2) infirmity; (3) iniquity; (4) a stain; (5) evil impulses; (6) the vices of nature; (7) a pleasure contrary to the divine command; (8) the sort of evil which is at war with the law of the mind; (9) the sort of evil whose guilt has been forgiven in Baptism, but whose actuality remains; (10) something through which our bodies are the raw materials for all vices; (11) the wickedness inherent in us through the condition of our common origin; (12) the evil because of which the body of the devout is still the body of death; (13) the very vices and passions of the body; (14) the sort of evil by which even the children of the reborn are born subject to original sin; (15) something on account of which we cannot be perfectly clean in this life; etc.

Therefore what does Bellarmine find lacking here? (1) He gravely accuses Chemnitz that “he collates things which occur in different sermons of Cyprian.”

We respond. But what crime has he committed in this? Are not even the statements of Scripture compared with one another? In addition, he is following Augustine, who collates these sermons.

(2) But [Bellarmine says:] “Augustine cites the latter statement of Cyprian, that no one should flatter himself about having a pure and spotless heart, for this purpose: to prove that no one can live so perfectly in this life that he never slips into any venial sin. Chemnitz quotes it for this purpose: to prove that even those faulty impulses of the flesh which one resists are sins.”

We respond. On the basis of Cyprian, Augustine is teaching two things: that all sins are forgiven in Baptism and that nonetheless there must be a struggle with carnal vices. In this contest, the reborn themselves are at times smitten by a hostile dart and, consequently, cannot flatter themselves with the idea that they have a pure and spotless heart, for which reason full perfection must only be hoped for in the life to come. The daily sins of weakness arise from the flesh and therefore bear witness that sin is still dwelling in the flesh. The corrupt thoughts which creep in at times despite our unwillingness testify that the heart is still corrupt and is not totally spotless. Cyprian resisted those impulses, and yet would not flatter himself as though he had a pure and spotless heart.

(3) [Bellarmine again:] “Augustine wants to prove from the testimony of Cyprian that whoever had original sin can nevertheless work righteousness; but Chemnitz teaches the contrary of this: that all the works of the reborn are sins.”

We respond. Augustine is citing the words of Cyprian to the end that he may prove that human nature is nevertheless capable of justification through the grace of God, but he does add that the perfection of righteousness must not be hoped for in this life, which is something we ourselves say and support.

(4) [Bellarmine again:] “The ancients say that we have a crown if we resist desires [concupiscentiis]. Therefore corrupt desires are not sins per se.”

We respond. There must be a distinction between that which, of itself, applies to a guilty person and that which, through accident, is ultimately attributed to him. Corrupt desires [concupiscentiae] are sins of themselves and by their own nature, but they become the material for a crown of glory through accident for those who believe in Christ. For very many, however, they are the material for destruction, which proves clearly that in the case of desires they become the material for the crown only through accident.

(5) Bellarmine explains the remaining statements as references to “daily venial sins, to an inclination to evil, to a corrupt arrangement of nature, to a weakness opposed to the Law in a merely material way, etc.—none of which is properly [sin].” But let the clarity of the statements speak for us.

(6) He finally adds the atrocious calumny: “Lutherans claim that all the works of the reborn are mortal sins.”

But who of us has ever taught or written in that way? We teach that all the works of the devout are contaminated and unclean, but we have never taught that they are mortal sins. But, in fact, since Bellarmine (De amiss. grat. et stat. pecc., bk. 1, ch. 4) confesses that we retain the distinction between venial and mortal sins, with what conscience can he say that we call all the works of the devout mortal sins? How could one who calls some sins venial call good works mortal sins?

§ 66. Let us listen to some of the ancients, but especially to Augustine, who had been stirred up by the Pelagian heresy and who treated this point of Christian doctrine accurately.

Irenaeus (Contra haereses, bk. 5, p. 560) teaches: “As an olive tree neglected in the wilderness for some time bears wild fruit according to its kind and becomes a wild olive, so also people who are established in negligence also bear the desires [concupiscentias] of the flesh like wild fruit and are justly established as fruitless according to their own condition.” Therefore sin surely continues to exist in the flesh even after Baptism, and if it is treated with neglect, it produces corrupt fruit of its own kind.

Macarius (Homily 15, p. 188):

If you persevere in saying that after Baptism sin has no place in the heart to be nourished or collected, then you must not know how many people have been baptized from the coming of the Lord until now and nonetheless have at times had corrupt thoughts, etc. Do we not discover that after Baptism many sins are committed and that very many people fall away? Thus after Baptism a thief has sustenance and license to transgress and act as he will. For it is written: “You will love the Lord with all your heart” [Deut. 6:5]. You speak the truth when you say, “I love and have the Holy Spirit.” Do you have a memory of, a love for, and a burning desire for the Lord? Are you overcome for Him day and night? If you are indeed endowed with this love, you are pure. But if you are not endowed with it, go on to ask where earthly business or shameful and corrupt thoughts have intruded, or if you have not inclined yourself toward these.

Page 225:

The sin which comes in stealthily works in a hidden and secret fashion in the inner man, and the mind is at war with his thoughts. Yet men are unaware that they do these things impelled by a foreign power, but rather think that these are natural, etc.

Read the entire homily. [Macarius] again (Homily 16, p. 231): “The evil within us works with all power and perception, suggesting obscene desires.” Page 236: “Evil adheres in us because it dwells in our heart and reveals its might there, suggesting corrupt and obscene thoughts, and does not permit us to pour out pure prayer, but it holds our mind captive through this life,” etc.

Jerome (on Matthew 5) says that “πρoπάθεια, or ‘first movements or emotions,’ have blame, though they are not held to be crimes.”

(Bellarmine counters: “Jerome is not speaking about habitually inherent concupiscence but about the first movements of concupiscence, which are neither completely voluntary nor completely involuntary.” This concession suffices for us, because Bellarmine elsewhere clearly states that there is no sin which is involuntary, and that the first involuntary movements of concupiscence are not sins.)

[Jerome] (Letter ad Ctesiph., ch. 1) proves in great detail that “no one can be without sin in this life.” On Amos (bk. 1): “The first sin is to have thought things that are evil; the second is to have acquiesced to perverse thoughts.”

§ 67. Finally, let Augustine come forth. He explains his opinion clearly in Contra Julian. (bk. 5, chs. 3–5). For here he responds in this way to Julianus, who argued that corrupt concupiscence or disobedience of the heart is praiseworthy since it is the punishment for sin:

Praise also the evil angels through whom God inflicts deserved punishments on sinners who nevertheless are nothing but liars or wicked people. Praise the blindness of the heart, which was a just punishment and, at the same time, the great evil of unbelief and the cause of great sin, etc. Just as the blindness of the heart by which one does not believe in God, which only God the Illuminator removes, is [both] sin and the punishment for sin, by which an arrogant heart is punished with worthy punishment, and is also a cause of sin, because some sin is caused by the error of a blind heart, so the concupiscence of the flesh, contrary to which the good Spirit yearns, is also sin because within it lies a disobedience against the sovereignty of the mind, and it is the punishment for sin because it is given due to the deserts of a disobedient person, and it is a cause of sin by the failure of a person who consents to it or because of the contagion of birth…. Discern the evils which we endure through patience from the evils which we restrain through continence.

He calls concupiscence “a vice, a disobedient impulse, concerning which the apostle says, ‘I see another law in my members’ [Rom. 7:23].” Ibid.: “While we are living here, where the flesh lusts [concupiscit] against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, no matter how much we conquer in that conflict, nevertheless if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves with excesses of pleasure which creep into the very impulses and passions of our thoughts.”

Contra Julian. (bk. 6, ch. 5): “Who is so imprudent and impudent; so stubborn, perverse, and obstinate; finally, so mad and insane that, though confessing that sins are evil, denies that there exists an evil concupiscence of sins, even though it is not permitted to conceive and produce sins when the Spirit is yearning against it? Because just so great an evil exists within him, how would it not hold him in death and draw him into an ultimate death, if its shackles were not broken in the remission of all sins that occurs in Baptism?” In ch. 6 Augustine had said: “The concupiscence of the flesh is remitted in Baptism not so that it does not exist, but so that it is not imputed as sin; yet it remains, with its guilt removed.” From this Julianus drew the conclusion that concupiscence in the reborn was no longer sin. To him Augustine responds in this way:

You are saying such things as must be said to those who affirm that, through Baptism, the concupiscence of the flesh has been made holy and faithful, yet it remains in them, in those regenerated, etc. Although its guilt—not that it was itself a guilty thing (for it is not a person), but that by which it originally made man guilty—was forgiven and vacated, yet far be it from us to say that it is sanctified with that which they hold as necessary for regeneration. [Rather,] if they have not received the grace of God in vain, they fight against it as an enemy in an internal warfare, and they desire and wish to be cleansed of this pestilence.

Chapter 8: “There is no absence of iniquity when superior things are in a disgraceful service to inferior ones, or when inferior things stubbornly resist superior ones even if they are not permitted to conquer.”

De pecc. merit. et remiss. (bk. 2, ch. 7): “Not every old infirmity is taken away from someone the very hour when he is baptized, but renewal begins with the remission of all sins, and to the extent that one hungers for spiritual things, to that extent is he renewed, etc. Surely, someone who is being renewed from day to day [2 Cor. 4:16] has not yet been completely renewed, and to that extent he is still under the old flesh.”

On John (tract. 41): “Examine any person who is extremely just in this life. However much he may now be worthy of the word ‘just,’ he is still not without sin, etc. Someone will ask, ‘Why is there no perfect liberty?’ Because ‘I see another law in my members at war with the law of my mind, for I do not do the good that I would, but I do that which I hate’ [Rom. 7:23, 15].’ ‘The flesh lusts against the Spirit’ [Gal. 5:17], etc. In part there is liberty; in part, slavery.” Ibid.: “Since all our iniquity has been blotted out in Baptism, has no weakness remained? If it did not remain, we would be living here without sin. But who may dare to say this unless he were prideful, unless he were unworthy of the mercy of the Deliverer?” etc. “The apostle does not say, ‘Let sin not exist,’ but ‘Let sin not rule in your body’ [Rom. 6:12]. As long as you live, sin must exist in your members, and here God is said to hate this sin in the reborn.”

Letter 29: “As long as love can be increased, surely whatever is less than it ought to be is of vice, because of which vice ‘there is not a just person on earth who does good and does not sin’ [Eccl. 7:20]; and on account of which vice ‘if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves’ [1 John 1:8]; and because no matter how far we may have advanced, it must be said, ‘Forgive us our debts’ [Matt. 6:12].”

De nupt. et concup. (bk. 1, ch. 25):

If someone asks how the concupiscence of the flesh remains in a reborn person in whom a remission of all sins has taken place, how he is conceived through it and how a carnal offspring is generated with it even from a baptized parent—or, at least, if it can exist in a baptized parent and yet not be sin—why, then, is the very same thing sin in the offspring? To this let the response be that the concupiscence of the flesh is remitted in Baptism not in such a way that it does not exist but in such a way that it is not imputed as sin, etc. It is an affection of an evil quality, like a weakness, etc. We are forbidden to obey its desires, lest sin rule in our body.

Chapter 27: “It passes as far as guilt is concerned but continues in actuality.”

§ 68. From these references, the place in which the concupiscence of the flesh in the reborn is held by Augustine is clear, for he calls it: (1) sin, (2) the sort of evil which must be restrained through continence, (3) which indeed is remitted in Baptism but remains in actuality. (4) He says that guilt is not removed from concupiscence itself but from the person. (5) To the contrary, he calls it a vice against which virtue must be placed; (6) iniquity; (7) a weakness which succumbs to the Law; (8) a disobedient impulse; (9) a weakness which resists our salvation; (10) the sort of evil which is at the same time sin and the cause and punishment of sin, (11) which is so great because it is inherent, holding a man in death unless its shackles are broken in Baptism; etc.

What can Bellarmine respond against this light? (1) He accuses Luther of making a false charge because “Augustine nowhere says that concupiscence remains in the reborn in such a way that it exists as sin but is not imputed, nor that it makes them guilty, nor that it is sin.” Ulenbergius (Causa 14 of his own apostasy) adds: “Philipp confessed this error of his at the Diet of Worms.”

We respond. Augustine is saying both: that concupiscence does remain in the reborn and that it is by its own nature sin, though it is not imputed as sin. In De nupt. et conc. (bk. 1, ch. 25) he says that “concupiscence is remitted in Baptism, not so that it does not exist but so that it is not imputed as sin.” He explains that in this way (Contra Julian., bk. 6, ch. 6): “Guilt is not removed from concupiscence itself but from the baptized person; meanwhile, concupiscence is and remains an evil thing and, in fact, the sort of evil thing which is a sort of stupidity, whereby the baptized people do not know the things which are of the Spirit of God, which is surely sin.” Indeed, in the preceding ch. 5 he proves that “concupiscence is worse than this ignorance.” Thus as far as Augustine is concerned, “concupiscence” and “sin” are synonymous.

(2) [Bellarmine] denies that the guilt of concupiscence means [the guilt] which rises from [concupiscence] and is founded in it, but rather the guilt through which it occurred. This is something which is obviously opposed to the statements of Augustine. For since Augustine asserts that original sin is especially based on that concupiscence, how would he not attribute the sort of guilt which rises from it and is founded on it to this concupiscence?

(3) He argues: “Concupiscence is called ‘sin’ not because it is sin per se but because it is sin only materially.”

We respond. Augustine is saying two things, which therefore are subordinates and consequences of each other. Bellarmine takes them as opposites and disjunctions.

(4) He concedes that “concupiscence is evil, it is unholy, it is a disorder and corruption.” Yet he denies that it is sin.

We respond. If the full proposition as set forth in Augustine is considered, then it will be clear that concupiscence is called not only the evil of punishment but also the evil of fault. But wherever he denies that concupiscence is sin, he understands sin as connected with actual guilt, for he explains himself in this way (De nupt. et concup., bk. 1, ch. 26): “Not having sin is not being guilty of sin.”

Bernard (Sermon 6 de adventu Domini, col. 12) imitates Augustine: “I say to you, that type of sin which disturbs us so frequently (I am speaking of concupiscence and evil desires) can and should be repressed by the grace of God so that it does not rule in us, but it is not cast out except in death.” Sermon de coen. Domini (col. 126): “In the fall of the first man we all fell. But we fell upon a heap of stones and in the mud, and from there we are not just defiled but also wounded and severely shaken. To be sure, we can be washed quickly, but for our healing there is much need of curing. Thus we are washed in Baptism, and this grace is given to us that concupiscence may no longer harm us, if we yet abstain from consenting to it.”

The testimonies of our adversaries themselves.

§ 69. Moreover, the Papists themselves bear witness to the truth of this opinion of ours. Cassander (Consult., art. 2):

On the basis of Augustine and the rest of the ecclesiastical writers, it is agreed that the apostle and Augustine, who followed him, at times call the concupiscence remaining after Baptism “sin” not only because it was made from sin but also because it is the kindling for sin and resists the control of the mind. Certainly the great theologian openly asserts that sin remains even in the reborn, though it is not imputed, etc. If you establish the nature of sin in fault and iniquity, weakness and ailment, which must be resisted by the Spirit, lest it produce illicit actions, then it is not inappropriately called “sin.” But if you understand the nature of sin to be situated in the actual offense against God and in guilt to which punishment and condemnation answer in turn, then it is not sin in the regenerate because if the will does not consent to it, it is not imputed as sin.

(We also say the same thing.)

Driedo (De grat. et lib. arbit., bk. 1): “Original sin indeed is forgiven in this life by the regeneration of Baptism, not so that it does not exist but so that it is not counted as fault.”

Ludovicus Vives (commentary on Augustine’s De civ. Dei, bk. 1, ch. 9): “So powerfully does a cupidity for sexual things cling to our inner parts that we cannot even think about fulfilling our lust without being touched by I know not what sort of hidden pleasure, which very many people want to be a venial sin.”

Stapleton (Antidot., Romans 7, p. 363): “In some sense, even to the reborn themselves, this concupiscence in itself with regard to its first emotions and corrupt desires is contained in this commandment” (“You shall not covet” [Exod. 20:17]), “not because this commandment obligates them under the punishment of mortal or venial sin, but because it teaches the ailment of our nature and how to seek the medicine, and because by its teaching it arouses us to a daily progress.” (If concupiscence is forbidden by God’s command, how will it not be sin? He tries in vain to escape through a distinction between a prohibition by means of doctrine and one by means of obligation.)

Bellarmine himself admits in many places: “Concupiscence is the law of one’s members at war with the law of his mind; it is the vitiated power of the mind; it is similar to canine rabies; it is iniquity; it is sin in the flesh materially, in the mind formally; it is a vice. It is at war with virtue; it is illicit; God considers it with hatred; it conflicts with the Law of God. It has a place not only in the flesh but also in the mind; it fights against the Spirit unto death; it impedes reason; it is far worse than the concupiscence of the beasts,” etc. How, then, can he deny that it is sin in itself and by its own nature?

Why does Bellarmine depart from Lombard, who writes clearly (Sent., 2, dist. [21], letter E): “There is an internal temptation when an evil is suggested to us invisibly from within. This temptation comes at times from the enemy and at times from the flesh. For the devil invisibly suggests evil things, and an illicit impulse and a corrupt titillation arise from the corruption of the flesh. Thus a temptation which is of the flesh does not occur without sin. But that which comes from an enemy does not have sin unless it is consented to, but rather it is material for exercising virtue.” [Sent. ] (3, dist. 17, letter B): “In Christ the flesh did not lust [concupiscebat] against the Spirit because, as Augustine says, there is sometimes a vice when the flesh lusts against the Spirit.” [Sent. ] (3, dist. 19, letter C): “Thus far we are waiting for the redemption of the body. But according to our souls we are already redeemed in part but not in whole, from fault not from punishment, nor even altogether from fault. For we have not been redeemed from it in such a way that it does not exist, but that it does not rule.”

The arguments which prove that concupiscence is sin.

§ 70. Let us take a look at how Bellarmine responds to the arguments drawn from Scripture in favor of our position.

(I) “Even the involuntary impulses of concupiscence are illicit; therefore they are surely also sins.” Bellarmine counters: “They are illicit because it is not permitted to obey them, not because they are not permitted to be endured with an unwilling spirit.”

We respond. They are illicit in both ways, not only with regard to consent but also in and of themselves, because they are prohibited by the divine Law. The Law says two things: “You shall not covet [concupiscas]” [Exod. 20:17] and “Do not follow after your desires [concupiscentias]” [1 Pet. 2:11]. The example which Bellarmine gives about “the person who commits a shameful act either because he is forced or from ignorance” is foreign to this point, because even though the desires of the flesh are a bother to the spirit, nevertheless they delight the flesh. What must be stated in regard to involuntary actual sins shall be given in its own place [§ 101].

(II) Concupiscence of itself draws one to evil. Therefore it is forbidden no less than the evil itself. Bellarmine counters: “The evil itself is not forbidden properly except to the extent that it is in our power to commit it or to be aware of it. Therefore all the more is concupiscence not otherwise forbidden.”

We respond. In this way, all sins, weaknesses, and ignorance which we cannot avoid in this frail flesh will be removed. It is enough for us to have received the power to avoid such things formerly in the first man.

(III) He who cannot resist compelling desire [cupiditas] and thus sins, nonetheless truly and properly sins. Therefore he also sins who, though unwilling, feels the desires [concupiscentiae] of the flesh.

Bellarmine counters: “The involuntary impulses of concupiscence are by no means within our power, but the voluntary desire to sin is within our power, if not immediately—namely, when we have been abandoned by divine judgment and do not have the powers with which to be able to resist the compelling desire—then at least mediately, because we can ask God for the help of His grace.”

We respond. The nature of both cases is the same. As God with His just judgment hardens and blinds impenitent people so as to be unable to resist the voluntary desires of sin which nonetheless are truly and properly sins, so also, because of the sin of our first parents, by the just judgment of God we fell into that wretched necessity of sinning so that we cannot but feel the corrupt impulses of concupiscence which nevertheless are truly and properly sins.

(IV) God and the reborn persecute corrupt concupiscence with hatred; therefore surely it is sin.

Bellarmine counters: “Concupiscence is thought of with hatred by God, and still it is not sin but merely an evil.”

We respond. Any evil that God hates is an evil of fault, for evils of punishment are inflicted by God. How, then, does God hate them? The reborn should not hate evils of punishment, to the extent that they are such, but should bear and endure them with a patient mind. Furthermore, Bellarmine is contradicting the Council of Trent, which claims that God hates nothing in the reborn. Therefore [according to the council] concupiscence in the reborn is not thought of with hatred by God.

Bellarmine responds: “The council must be understood to be referring to the hatred which falls back upon the person, but God surely does not hate the reborn themselves because of the concupiscence which is in the reborn.” This is most correctly stated, to be sure, but it is not in conformity with the statement of the council, for that statement was opposed to us and with an anathema strikes down our position by which we claim that sin, truly and properly so called, does dwell in the reborn, though it does not cause the reborn to be guilty and condemned in actuality. Therefore Bellarmine fails to understand either the opinion of the council or our counsel.

(V) Concupiscence is not from God. Yet every punishment is from God. Therefore concupiscence is not only the evil of punishment but also the evil of fault.

Bellarmine counters: “Death is also not from God.”

We respond. God indeed does not cause death (Wisdom 1:13); that is, He does not subject man to death because of any absolute hatred. Nevertheless He makes man subject to death and various calamities with His just judgment because of sin. Augustine (Contra Julian., bk. 1, ch. 7): “God brought on death, not as its first Creator but as the avenger of sin.” Thus the argument here is not equal in both cases. Death is merely punishment but not fault, but corrupt concupiscence is at the same time punishment and fault, just as some actual sins are at the same time punishment for earlier sins.

(VI) There is no punishment in this life which cannot be desired for the sake of a good end, but concupiscence cannot be rightly desired for any end.

Bellarmine counters: “Ignorance of the things necessary for salvation and of the temptations of Satan are punishments for sin, which nevertheless ought not be desired.”

We respond. We are not using the argument to which Bellarmine responds, yet [he responds] in such a way as to confirm our opinion. For if ignorance of the things necessary for salvation and corrupt concupiscence must be considered in an equal position, then surely concupiscence is simultaneously sin and the punishment for the first sin. Far be it from us to say that the blindness of the mind introduced into his descendants by the first sin of Adam is not sin. Indeed, Lombard (Sent., 2, dist. 21, letter E) demonstrates that there is a difference between the temptations of Satan and those of the flesh.

(VII) Christ became similar to us in all things but is without sin. Yet He was not subject to the same corrupt concupiscence.

Bellarmine counters: “Christ also did not wish to assume ignorance, which is nevertheless not sin, if it is totally involuntary.”

We respond. Therefore is the ignorance introduced into all descendants by the first sin not sin? Thus what sin or what sort of sin is original sin in infants? But observe that the strength of the argument is restrained more strongly if it is added that the Papists claim that corrupt desires [concupiscentiae] arose from the very condition of matter when the bridle of original righteousness was removed. Thus the condition of matter is either not in Christ, and so He will not be ὁμooύσιoς with us, or else some restraint of righteousness must be added to it, and so sin will be in Him by primary actuality.¹⁰

(VIII) Every lawlessness is sin. Corrupt concupiscence is lawlessness.

Bellarmine counters: (1) “This is eluded by many through jest,” which scorn pertains to sophistical ways of responding.

(2) He concedes that “concupiscence is sin materially and in a broad way, and in this way even faults of nature and art can be called sin.” But this proves our argument that concupiscence is properly and formally sin, which indeed departs from the norm of the divine Law.

(3) Thus he responds in another manner: “Not everything which departs from the norm of the Law is lawlessness. Rather, the discord, the warfare, and the departure are themselves formally sin. Although the devil and the human will depart from the divine Law, nevertheless they are not properly sin.”

We respond. But [he says this] as if it were unknown to Dr. Chemnitz, who in his Examen gravely attacks Andrada because of that puerile jest. Concupiscence of itself is an indifferent impulse, but to the extent that corruption inheres in it, it is lawless, and, in that respect, lawlessness is attributed to it.

(4) “Concupiscence conflicts with the Law but is not the formal conflict itself, nor does it conflict as an act which departs from the norm of the Law nor as a power nor as a person which is bound to follow the norm. Instead, it conflicts as something which incites and impels toward the violation of the Law in the same way as the devil conflicts with the Law.”

We respond. Corrupt concupiscence means both habitually inherent concupiscence and its first impulses. In both ways it conflicts with the Law and departs from the norm of the Law. These two [ways] are of the same force here. Therefore Bellarmine’s attempt is in vain, for it depends on this hypothesis: as if concupiscence conflicted with the Law only in inciting to sin and is not also a habit which departs from the norm of the Law, though Scripture attributes both to concupiscence.

Earlier in ch. 10, in reference to God’s commandment “You shall not covet [concupisces]” [Exod. 20:17], Bellarmine conceded that even the first impulses of concupiscence are prohibited. (If he had not conceded this, we would prove it in detail from the inner parts of the divine Law, concerning which see Dr. Chemnitz, Loci comm., ch. De lege Dei.) How, then, can he deny that corrupt concupiscence is lawlessness and a deviation from the Law?

Therefore we invert what Bellarmine adds about the devil in this way. As the devil’s suggesting of corrupt thoughts to a person not only incites him to sin (and thus conflicts with the Law) but in so doing also sins himself (and thus departs from the Law), so also the corrupt concupiscence of the flesh not only incites the reborn mind to sin but is also itself infected with sin, and thus not only conflicts with the Law but also departs from the Law. The suggestions of Satan are always sin; even if ours are not (especially if they are not allowed to enter), nevertheless they are the sins of Satan. Thus the suggestions of the flesh are also sins, not someone else’s but our own, because they develop in our flesh. The statement of Lombard—that temptation which comes from the flesh does not occur without sin—pertains here. The matter is very clear and obvious, and Bellarmine will never cover it up with cloudy sophistry in such a way that the splendor of the truth does not shine forth.

(5) “John never says that every lawlessness [ἀνoμία] is sin but that every injustice [ἀδικία] [is sin]; [injustice] is the species, but lawlessness is the genus.”

We respond. What finally will be the end of his sophisms? The apostle says clearly: “Everyone who commits sin also commits lawlessness” and “Sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4). From this it follows immediately that lawlessness and sin are reciprocal terms, for the apostle is here discussing the faults of neither the body nor art, which are not lawlessness, properly speaking, because they are not aberrant from the norm of the divine Law. “Injustice” is used either universally—and so every sin is an injustice, since justice contains within itself every virtue—or it is used particularly, in which case injustice is a species of sin. But what can Bellarmine elicit from this against our opinion? He argues that Chemnitz had said that “every lawlessness was sin and that every injustice was sin” since the apostle clearly declares both of these [statements].

Furthermore, that it may become clear how close Bellarmine is coming to the Pelagian camp, we may carefully take note of what he writes here:

It is true that the depravation of the human nature is not in harmony with the divine Law if the Law is being dealt with in a universal sense, but not if the discussion concerns the Law, whose violation produces guilt and which is sin properly speaking. For though the depravation which is in the will is truly sin, if we understand it as a turning away from God, nevertheless the depravation which is in the intellect or in the flesh, which is a proneness of the will to obey the desires of the flesh and a difficulty in obeying God, is not contrary to any law whose violation is sin properly speaking and therefore is not sin, in itself and of its own nature. For as far as concerns the law of the first institution of nature, it is not that moral Law whose breaking establishes the guilty party as a transgressor. For God has not commanded a person to be born with original righteousness in this or that way; rather, He created man’s nature as He wished and equipped it with the gifts with which He was pleased to adorn it. He also gave it the elements from which it could be propagated. But if it sometimes happens that the situation develops differently from the way in which God instituted it, there is indeed in that situation a sin of nature, but not the sort of sin which is worthy of punishment, etc. In regard to the law of nature, which requires us to lead our life according to reason, which law we cannot keep by the powers of our corrupt nature, I say that it is possible for that law to be considered in two ways: First, to signify the moral Law, which properly commands the will to follow the lead of reason, not agree to the desires of the flesh, etc. In this way it is the true Law, but the violation of it is not original but actual sin. Second, to signify the natural order and harmony which requires the superior part to command, the inferior part to be subject, etc. And in this way, that law of nature is the same as the institution of nature against which the rebellion of the flesh and the difficulty of the will do battle. But these are not sin properly speaking, but the punishments of sin and defects following from the material, just as rust is related to an iron knife.

With all these words Bellarmine no longer does battle for Pelagianism indirectly, but openly.

The antithesis of the adversaries, that concupiscence is not sin.

§ 71. Now that these things have been said for the confirmation of our position—that the concupiscence remaining in the reborn is truly sin—let us see what the opinion of the Papists is in regard to this concupiscence.

The Council of Trent (sess. 5): “This holy synod declares that the concupiscence which the apostle sometimes calls ‘sin’ has never been understood by the Catholic Church as being called sin in such a way that it is truly and properly sin in the reborn, but because it comes from sin and inclines toward sin. But if anyone believes to the contrary, let him be anathema.”

Bellarmine (De amiss. grat. et statu peccati, bk. 5, ch. 7) explains the statement of the council in this way: “We assert that the corruption or concupiscence of nature such as remains in the reborn after Baptism is not original sin, not only because it is not imputed but also because it cannot be imputed, because it is not of itself or of its own nature sin.” [Bellarmine again] (De amiss. grat. et stat. peccat., bk. 4., ch. 2): “Zwingli teaches that the ailment which spreads to all men from the sin of the first man is not sin properly but by metonymy; that is, it is the effect and cause of sin. In this Zwingli agrees with Catholics and disagrees with Luther.” [Bellarmine again] (bk. 5, ch. 10): “It is not the concupiscence of the flesh but of the heart—that is, voluntary concupiscence—which is forbidden in the law ‘You shall not covet [concupisces]’ [Exod. 20:17].” (He is describing [the argument] from Johannes à Daventria in Refutat. art. secund. Augustan. Confess., who also writes: “ ‘You shall not covet’ [concupisces] is not a commandment for the flesh, nor for the sensitive soul, but for the intellective [soul].”)

The Jesuits of Bordeaux (Inventaire, bk. 2, ch. 12, Du Peché originel., p. 79): “We assert that the proclivity to evil which is in man, the concupiscence and stain of nature by which we are inclined to evil, is not sin. But in fact it is so subject to reason and free will even without the aid of the Holy Spirit that nothing could be more so.”

Molanus (tract. 5, ch. 27, concl. 4): “Many thoughts against faith and impure imaginations are not sins.” In the same way, Bellarmine (De amiss. grat., bk. 5, ch. 7, col. 374) [writes]: “Titillation and incitement, even when connected with pleasure, are not sin in the true sense unless they have the consent of the mind in some way.”

From these [statements] it is apparent that the Papists not only do not consider habitually inherent concupiscence—that is, original sin itself—to be sin properly speaking but also do not consider the first impulses of concupiscence in the reborn [to be sin either], surely so that they will be able to establish the perfection, merit, and supererogation of good works before the judgment of God.

Arguments from Scripture.

§ 72. Bellarmine (De amiss. grat. et stat. pecc., bk. 5, ch. 5), reporting our position by way of calumny, attributes this to Chemnitz: “He claims that not only concupiscence but even the mass of the flesh, even though the parts of the body may not yet have been formed, are truly and properly sin.”

We respond. Chemnitz never says that the mass is sin but that it has been contaminated by sin, which contamination has the true nature of sin according to David’s confession [in Psalm 51]. Against the testimony of his own conscience, Bellarmine confesses these two things: that it is sin and that it has been contaminated by sin, and yet in the following ch. 6 he complains about the lies and false accusations of our people, none of which exist if their words were but carefully examined, as we have shown earlier in different places [e.g., On Original Sin (Commonplace XII), § 91].

Let us examine the arguments of Bellarmine.

James 1[:15]: “Concupiscence, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin.”

(I) “James 1:15: ‘Concupiscence, when it has conceived, gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full grown, brings forth death.’ Therefore concupiscence—that is, the inclining power—and its first impulse are not yet sin without consent.”

We respond. (1) The apostle says that concupiscence gives birth to sin, but nowhere does he say that it is not sin.

(2) But no firm conclusion can be elicited from the apostle’s words, for in a similar way I could conclude from Rom. 5:12 and 19 (“Sin came into the world through one man…. By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners…”) that therefore the [first] man was not a sinner, that therefore his disobedience was not sin.

(3) But rather, if concupiscence gives birth to sin, it is itself sin, because that which gives birth and that which is born share with each other at least the genus, if not always the species.

(4) The inclusion of the one is not immediately the exclusion of the other, so it is not permitted to conclude: “Concupiscence gives birth to sin; therefore it is not itself sin.”

(5) But in fact the apostle is distinguishing the grades of sin and is seeking the source from which mortal, actual sin arises. But he responds that it comes from corrupt concupiscence and not from God. Although habitually inherent concupiscence in the reborn and the first impulses of concupiscence which one resists through the Spirit are not mortal, actual sins, nevertheless it is ignorantly inferred from this that they are not sins in any way at all. This would be to proceed from the negation of species to the negation of genus, which is unphilosophical.

(6) Christ proceeds in the contrary manner. He teaches that judgment is to be made concerning the badness of a tree on the basis of its bad fruit, and He convicts us of the depravity of our heart from its thoughts and other corrupt impulses, etc. (See Matt. 7:17; 15:19; Luke 6:43; etc.)

(7) What of the fact that actual, mortal sins are themselves causes of each other, and yet do not cease being actual, mortal sins in and of themselves? Eph. 5:18: “From wine” (or drunkenness) “is debauchery.” Nonetheless drunkenness and debauchery are mortal, actual sins. All the less is it permissible to conclude: “Concupiscence which conceives and produces sin produces mortal, actual sin; therefore it is by no means itself sin.”

(8) The commentaries of Augustine, Cyril, and Bede on this passage are not opposed to us. They assert that concupiscence produces sin, that all sin has pleasure as its precursor, that resisted concupiscence produces the crown of life. This is something none of our people denies. Nevertheless this does not yet prove that concupiscence is not sin by its own nature.

Romans 7[:20]: “It is not I who do it, but sin.”

§ 73. (II) “Rom. 7:20: ‘Therefore it is not I who do it, but sin which dwells within me.’ Verse 18: ‘For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh.’ Therefore concupiscence which dwells in the flesh of the reborn and which drives them to sin is not sin.”

We respond. It is amazing that with some skill he can chisel out from this passage the statement that concupiscence is not sin, even though it is clearly called “sin”!

Bellarmine counters: “This is concluded obviously enough from two points, for the apostle first says that the impulse of concupiscence is not his own work, and thus cannot be imputed to him. For by what right can something be imputed to me which is not mine? Second, he adds that an evil of this kind is not in himself but in his flesh. But it is evident that the flesh is incapable of sin, properly speaking.”

We respond. The apostle is not absolutely and simply denying that the impulses are his work; rather, he is stating that (insofar as he has been reborn) he is displeased with that work. In v. 19 he expressly says that he does the evil which he does not wish to do. How, then, would he absolutely deny that those impulses of corrupt concupiscence are his own? Rather, it is for this reason that he says that it is not he who does them: because they do not please him, he who through the Spirit does not want to feel them.

Augustine (De nupt. et concup., bk. 1, ch. 27):

The concupiscence of the flesh does something even when it does not exhibit the consent of the heart. It reigns there in the members or tools by which its command is fulfilled. But what does it do except evil and shameful desires? Hence the apostle addresses us as if speaking from his own persona, saying: “For the good that I would I do not do, but the evil which I hate, that I do,” that is, “I covet [concupisco],” because he did not wish to [covet] so that he could be perfect in every respect. Because he did not wish to covet and yet coveted, but by no means served the covetousness by consenting to it, he adds these words, saying, “But now it is no longer I who do it, but sin which dwells within me.”

[Augustine again] (Contra duas epist. Pelag., bk. 1, ch. 10): “The apostle says, ‘But now it is no longer I who do it, but sin which dwells within me.’ What is this ‘but now’ except ‘now, at length, under the grace which has liberated the pleasure of my will from consenting to cupidity’? For ‘it is not I who do it’ cannot be better understood than that he does not consent to present his members to sin as tools of iniquity. For if he lusts [concupiscit] and consents and acts, how is it that he himself is not doing it, though he may grieve that he does it and deeply bemoan the fact that he is overcome?” [Augustine again] (Sermon 5 de verb. apost.):

“I do what I do not want; but what I hate, this I do.” What do I do? I covet [concupisco]. Although I do not consent to concupiscence, and though I do not go after my desires, nevertheless I still covet, and surely even in that part I am myself, for I am not one person in the mind and another in the flesh. But what, then, am I myself doing, because I am both in the mind and in the flesh? For these are not two contrary natures, but one man exists from the two, because God is one, from whom man was made.

(And later:)

“Evil lies close to me, and this is mine” [cf. Rom. 7:21]. Now, my flesh is mine—or is it of another substance, or of another principle, or is the soul from God and the flesh from a generation of shadows? Nonsense!

All those are the words of Augustine, and they are of immovable truth. For since the coveting [concupiscens] flesh itself is the flesh of the apostle, how could he absolutely deny that the impulses of concupiscence in his flesh were his? Sin is not a substance foreign to the apostle himself, is it? Finally, if something that is not his own—that is, what he does not do with deliberate intent—cannot be imputed to him, then original sin will again be expressly denied.

What the word “flesh” means in Romans 7.

§ 74. To the latter part of Bellarmine’s counterargument we respond that here the word “flesh” does not mean the body itself nor merely the inferior part of the soul (as they say), but the entire human being, insofar as he is still under the old flesh, in the most customary phraseology of Scripture. Bellarmine expressly concedes that in many passages of Scripture, such as John 3, Galatians 5, etc., “flesh” means all [human] powers, both inferior and superior, corrupted by sin; but he denies that it means the whole human being in Romans 7, and he does this by setting forth various lines of reasoning:

(1) “The apostle would not be speaking truly in saying, ‘It is not I who do this,’ if the entire man were meant by ‘flesh,’ for how does he not do that which his flesh and mind—that is, his total self—do?”

We respond. Surely the apostle, renewed by the Spirit, would not consent to the desires of the flesh but would resist them. Yet his very soul, no less than his body, was still in some way under the old flesh. Thus the apostle denies that he is doing the impulses of concupiscence, not simply (because actions belong to the whole person [suppositum],¹¹ and the coveting flesh was the apostle’s own flesh), but with respect to the consent of the renewed mind. He is distinguishing between the subject which [subjectumquod] and the subject by which [subjectum quo].¹² I am not doing that, namely, by the mind, insofar as it has been reborn; but sin is doing that, that is, I do it because of the sin which still remains in the flesh.

(2) “By way of correction, the apostle adds that sin dwells not in him but in his flesh. Therefore it was not in his entire self.”

We respond. This is an explanation, not a refutation; a clarification, not a correction. For since he had been renewed in the spirit of his mind, he hated the impulses of concupiscence, and that is why he says that he is not doing them, that is, insofar as he is spiritual; for he was doing that which he hated, insofar as he was carnal, sold under sin ([Rom. 7:]14). The apostle contrasts himself as he is renewed by the Spirit to the sin still dwelling in his flesh; thus there is a contrast “of the same thing” but not “according to the same thing,” as is clear from the verses following. If the impulses of concupiscence were not in any way at all the work of the apostle Paul, why does he call himself wretched because of them and pray to be freed from them [Rom. 7:24]?

(3) “The apostle clearly distinguishes between mind and flesh, that is, the one part of the human being from the other.”

We respond. He is certainly distinguishing mind from flesh, but with the word “mind” he understands the entire soul to the extent that it has been renewed, and with the word “flesh” he means the same whole soul to the extent that it is still under the old flesh. Bellarmine (ch. 15 of this book) himself admits that the fault of corrupt concupiscence is found in the very mind of the reborn, that is, as he himself says, in the superior part of the soul.

(4) “The apostle says in Rom. 6[:12] that this evil is in the mortal body, and in this passage he prays to be freed from the body. Therefore sin dwells only in the body.”

We respond. There is a great emphasis in the apostolic speech, for he is contrasting the present life, in which we are sold under sin and carry sin and death within ourselves, to eternal life, in which there will be a perfect renewal of the entire human being and when we shall be freed from all sin so that not only will it not reign in us, but also it will not be in us at all. He calls it “the body of death” because we are subject to death on account of the sin which still dwells within us, which must be defined not only as the destruction of the body but also as the wretched grief of the soul which has been forced to depart from its own proper dwelling place.

Chrysostom (on Romans, sermon 13): “When you hear what he says, ‘Who will save me from the body of this death?’ do not think that he is accusing the flesh.”

Augustine (De nupt. et concup., bk. 1, ch. 13): “It is understood as pertaining to ‘the body of this death’ that another law in his members is at war with the law of his mind, while the flesh lusts [concupiscit] against the spirit, even though it does not make it subject because the spirit also yearns [concupiscit] against the flesh.”

Observe that here, according to Augustine, “flesh,” “members,” “body of this death,” etc., mean the same as what is meant in Gal. 5[:17]: the flesh which is at war with the spirit. But now, Bellarmine (commentary on Galatians 5) confesses: “The word ‘flesh’ means the entire person, insofar as he has not yet been fully renewed; this is demonstrated also by the matter at hand. For it cannot be denied with any appearance of truth that even the reborn are persuaded by the flesh toward heresy, arrogance, greed, etc.”

(5) “The apostle understands the word ‘mind’ to mean the inner man, which means the soul (2 Cor. 4[:16]); the word ‘body’ means the exterior man.”

We respond. The apostle states that the inner man is being renewed from day to day. Therefore it is surely not yet completely renewed, and to the extent that it is not yet renewed it is still under the old [condition] (and under sin), as Augustine (De peccat. merit. et remiss., bk. 2, ch. 7) correctly concludes. By “flesh” Bellarmine himself understands not only the body but also the inferior part of the soul. But the inferior part of the soul is really undivided and immortal along with the soul itself. Thus how is it that the “flesh” and the “exterior man” (Romans 7; 2 Corinthians 4) are supposed to mean the same thing?

(6) “When ‘flesh’ is used in an evil sense, it is attributed only to wicked people.”

We respond. Does the apostle not clearly say: “I am still carnal” (Rom. 7:14) and (concerning the reborn themselves) “The flesh lusts [concupiscit] against the spirit” (Gal. 5:17)? Therefore, though the reborn are freed by the Holy Spirit from the guilt of sin and from the dominion of the flesh (in which respect it is denied that they are of the flesh), yet they are still partly struggling under the weakness of the flesh and are still aspiring to attain perfect renewal (in which respect they are said to be carnal).

(7) “Likewise, Augustine takes the word ‘flesh’ to mean only the body and the inferior part.”

We respond. Augustine clearly writes (De pecc. merit. et remiss., bk. 2, ch. 7): “Setting aside the body, perfect renewal cannot occur in the soul itself, which is the inner man, and the old man is being put off inwardly and the new man is being put on inwardly as well.” Contra Julian. (bk. 6): “Against its own impulses, which it has according to the spirit, the soul sets forth its other impulses which it has according to the flesh; and again, against its impulses which it has according to the flesh, it sets forth its other impulses which it has according to the spirit. And thus it is said that the flesh lusts [concupiscit] against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. But on account of this it is also said that the soul itself is renewed from day to day.”

It suffices for us that, according to Augustine (De civit. Dei, bk. 14, ch. 2, and in many places elsewhere), the word “flesh,” as used in Galatians 5, means the entire human being to the extent that he is still under the yoke of sin. But now, the reborn are not yet fully and wholly freed from that concupiscence of the flesh even in the superior powers of the soul. Therefore the word “flesh,” as used in Romans 7, surely means the entire human being, since the apostle is speaking in the persona of the reborn. And lest any doubt remain in regard to this subject, we urge the following arguments.

(1) Where Scripture uses the word “flesh” to describe the corruption of human nature introduced by sin, it means the corruption and contamination of all parts of the soul. But in Romans 7 the word “flesh” describes the corruption of the human nature introduced by and remaining from sin. Therefore, etc.

(2) In regard to the reborn, the apostle testifies (1 Cor. 3[:16–17] and 6[:16, 19]) that their bodies are the temples of the Holy Spirit, no less than he says in this passage of Rom. 7[:25] that they serve the Law of God with their mind. Therefore no difference can be established between the body and the mind of the reborn, as if the whole mind had been renewed and the whole body were still under the old [condition]. Instead, “flesh,” “body,” and “members” mean the old Adam, the whole man, to the extent that he is still carnal. The words “mind” and “spirit” mean the new man, that is, also the whole man, to the extent that he has been renewed.

(3) When the works of the flesh are listed in Gal. 5[:19–21], such misfortunes are attributed to the flesh which (as is evident) befit neither the body alone nor the inferior faculties of the soul, but the superior part of it (as they say). But in Romans 7 the apostle is speaking about the same flesh of the reborn. Therefore the word “flesh” surely means the whole man to the extent that he has not yet been fully renewed in all his powers.

(4) In Romans 7 the apostle means that [flesh] to which he later (Rom. 8:6–7) ascribes the mind. But thinking is a superior faculty of the soul. Therefore this is also included under the word “flesh.”

(5) In Romans 7 the word “flesh” indicates anything that still lacks renewal in the reborn. The conclusion is clear because the word “flesh” is used not only for the substance itself but also as the old flesh which is to be renewed. But the reborn still lack the renewal of the spirit of the mind (Eph. 4:23). Therefore the word “flesh” means the mind of the reborn to the extent that it has not yet been fully renewed.

These arguments must be brought against Stapleton (Antidot., Romans 7, p. 419), who calls our position “a profane and unheard-of novelty of verbiage.” He adds (p. 410) that it is “absurd” and attacks it tragically. Bellarmine has seen that the arguments for our opinion can be sought in the text itself, and thus adds:

Even if we were compelled to take the word “flesh” to mean all the powers of the soul, nevertheless it would be completely necessary to say that, in regard to the justified, the word “flesh” does not pertain to the will or mind except as the first unintentional impulses [of them]. But the superior part of the soul is incapable of sin, properly speaking, since the judgment of reason is previous to its movement; because righteousness cannot be in the inferior or even in the superior part of the soul, since the judgment of the reason is prior to it. Therefore sin, properly speaking, cannot be in it.

We respond. Therefore where will original sin in infants, who do not yet have the use of reason, be relegated? (And what do these words mean: “the inferior part of the soul, as also the superior”?) To the extent that the judgment of reason comes before its activity, is it incapable of righteousness? Or was not part of original righteousness the complete subjection of the inferior part to the superior and the conformity of all the powers of the soul? Yes, of course.

Romans 8[:1]: “There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.”

§ 75. (IV) “Rom. 8:1: ‘There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.’ Here the apostle is saying that even if the reborn feel concupiscence, there is yet nothing worthy of condemnation in them.”

We respond. Of his own accord, Bellarmine adds that there is nothing worthy of condemnation in the reborn, that is, anything because of which they could be condemned by the just judgment of God, if He wished to remove the umbrella of grace and to call them into judgment. The apostle does not say this, since he had asserted in the previous chapter that sin still dwelt in him and in all the reborn, something which he is not denying in this passage. Rather, he is asserting that they do not have to fear condemnation; that is, he denies that concupiscence is the sort of sin in them which in actuality would make them guilty and subject to condemnation, namely, because they are in Christ, that is, they receive forgiveness of this sin through faith. And because they do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit—that is, because they do not permit concupiscence to have dominion but mortify it—thus from this they are not rendered liable to condemnation, though otherwise concupiscence is sin by its own nature, and as a consequence it can make a person subject to condemnation if it is neither forgiven nor mortified.

Bellarmine’s objection is frivolous: “There was no need for the apostle to teach that the reborn are not yet condemned in actuality and reality, since the sentence of condemnation is not carried out until after this life.”

We respond. Surely, because of the sin adhering to the reborn, they quite often fear the sentence of damnation and acknowledge that because of it they can be determined to be guilty of divine wrath and of eternal damnation. Therefore they had to be lifted up by this consolation: that they will not go into judgment. Christ says, John 3:18: “He who does not believe has already been judged,” but the revelation of this is reserved for the final judgment. In the case of the reborn, the situation is exactly the same: “In them there is no condemnation,” which will not be revealed until the Last Day. Therefore let it remain firmly fixed that in the reborn there is no condemnation because of concupiscence (against whose impulses they fight), not because it is not a sin worthy of condemnation by its own nature, but because its guilt is forgiven for Christ’s sake.

Bellarmine attacks this in many ways: (1) “Guilt is the form of sin, and therefore the guilt of concupiscence is removed in Baptism. Concupiscence certainly ceases to be sin.”

We respond. Properly speaking, the form of concupiscence and of all sin is lawlessness, a turning away from the norm of the Law. When Philipp and others say that the form of sin is guilt, they are not using “form” strictly but are speaking about sin as it is considered in the category of relation.¹³ Properly speaking, guilt is not the form but the proper consequence of sin, as it is considered in the category of quality.¹⁴ In addition, guilt is not removed from concupiscence itself but from the person, about which subject Augustine writes (Contra Julianum, bk. 6, ch. 6): “The guilt of sin is removed in Baptism but not the guilt of it” (concupiscence) “by which the [concupiscence] itself was guilty, for it was not a person but was what originally made man guilty and of which he was forgiven and emptied.” But far be it from us to say that it is sanctified, since the regenerate must necessarily fight with it as with an enemy in an inner war—if they have not received the grace of God in vain.

(2) “Guilt is wholly inseparable from something that is worthy of eternal damnation by its own nature, since that is the merit of punishment.”

We respond. Guilt is not removed from concupiscence but from a person. Bellarmine grants that God hates concupiscence, and yet does not hate the reborn in whom concupiscence exists. In the same way, we say that concupiscence is a matter worthy of damnation by its own nature, and yet the reborn are not damned because of it. Proper adjuncts are not separated from a thing as far as potential [potentia] is concerned, but they are as far as actuality is concerned, with respect to the power [potentia] of God. So therefore, though concupiscence actually does not condemn the reborn, it can yet condemn if it is considered in and of itself. Here the ancients use the example of the Canaanites whose yoke and mastery God had lifted from the necks of the Israelites, and yet He did not utterly destroy all their remnants but had left them to survive as the material of a constant exercise for guarding against the security of the Israelites.

Bernard (Sermon de coena Domini): “Although Christ has taken away condemnation, nevertheless He permits sin to be in us and to afflict us grievously in order to humble us, so that we may sense what His grace is offering us and always run back to the help of that grace.”

(3) “God never forgives guilt so long as its basis remains, because His judgment is according to truth.”

We respond. As the sins of the wicked pass away in actuality but remain in guilt (according to Augustine, De nupt. et concup., bk. 1, ch. 26), so in turn the sins of the reborn pass away in guilt but remain in actuality. Although the guilt of David’s adultery was forgiven, yet the act itself was not removed. It conflicts with the truth of God [to say] that what truly happened did not happen.

(4) “The apostle draws his conclusion from the preceding verses, in which he had said that the impulses of concupiscence are neither voluntary nor sin.”

We respond. Nowhere did he say the latter, but in the last verse of the preceding chapter he had said that by the grace of God in Christ the reborn had obtained the forgiveness of sins, through the Holy Spirit they had been reborn and renewed and serve the law of sin only in the flesh but not the mind [Rom. 7:24–25]. On account of this, he adds that there is nothing of condemnation (or as the Greek words have it: “no condemnation”) in them, which he again proves in two ways: (1) because they are in Christ, namely, through faith; (2) because they do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.

[That] in Baptism sin is remitted completely.

§ 76. (V) “Scripture teaches that a true remission of sins occurs through Baptism so that not only is the debt of punishment pardoned, but also the stains are washed away, cleansed, erased, removed.”

We respond. More will be said about this argument in our treatise On Baptism [Commonplace XXIII, §§ 128–64]. Here we respond briefly. Titus 3:5: “Baptism is the washing of regeneration and renewal.” Through regeneration we receive the remission of sins, the grace of God, the adoption of sons, the inheritance of eternal life, etc. All these things come to us truly and perfectly. Renewal is also true, but it is not immediately perfect, for the apostle says clearly (2 Cor. 4:16): “Our inner man is being renewed day by day.” In Baptism we are washed and sanctified (1 Cor. 6:11); yet, nevertheless, we are ordered to cleanse ourselves from every defilement of the flesh and spirit and to perfect sanctification (2 Cor. 7:1). We shall say more about this in its own place.

§ 77. Bellarmine takes his second class of arguments from the sayings of the fathers, in regard to which we state the following. (1) This kind of proof is secondary. (2) Clear and obvious testimonies occur in them to confirm our position. (3) Augustine (Contra Julianum, bk. 2) has gathered the statements of the ancients from which it is easy to make judgment concerning the opinion of antiquity. (4) Before the rise of the Pelagian conflict, they sometimes spoke more carelessly. (5) They use the word “sin” in a philosophical sense, saying that sin is at least that which is voluntary in actuality, even though this does not fit original sin. (6) They quite often understand sin to be something which makes even a reborn person liable to the wrath of God and to damnation in actuality. Since concupiscence is not this kind of sin in the reborn, they deny that it is sin in this sense. (7) But elsewhere they explain their position clearly, repudiating the merit and perfection of works and denying that the Law can be perfectly fulfilled in this life. (8) Indeed, when the fathers spoke to the people, they would say the things that seemed more useful to arouse people to good works, as Bellarmine (De grat. et liber. arbitr., bk. 2, ch. 14, col. 628) admits in a similar question. (9) Finally, the things which Bellarmine cites from the fathers are so far from being opposed to us that at times they clearly confirm our opinion. Methodius, as quoted in Epiphanius (Haeres. 64), says: “Concupiscence has been left in us for the sake of the struggle, that through it we might be proved like gold in the smelter.”

Meanwhile, it is correct that concupiscence is sin by its own nature, and we must do battle with the devil, who is the greatest sinner. What of the fact that the words of Methodius favor our position? He says: “You see that our thoughts threaten us internally because of sin which dwells within us. They are like rabid dogs or animals or daring thieves, always stirred up against us by the tyrannical prince of iniquity. They test us to see whether we can resist them.”

Basil (De virgin.) calls the affections of the flesh “natural” (but he means that nature has been corrupted by sin, for it was not like that at first).

Chrysostom (Homily 19 ad populum Antiochenum): “It is natural to covet [concupiscere], but evil coveting is of the will.” [Chrysostom again] (on Romans, homily 13): “Passions themselves are not sin in themselves, but their unbridled immoderation is sin.” (Who denies this? We ourselves distinguish between natural passions and vices or immoderation in passions.)

The author of the Opus imperfect. in Matthaeum (homily 12) denies that the flesh was told “You shall not covet [concupisces]” [Exod. 20:17]. (Bellarmine elevates the authority of this in many places.)

Cyril says (on John, bk. 4, ch. 51): “A certain pleasure runs ahead of sin.” (But it does not yet follow from this that the most unrestrained pleasure is by no means sin.)

The judgment is the same in regard to the rest. They distinguish actual, mortal sin from original and venial sin.

Bellarmine tries to prove from all the volumes of Augustine that he denied that concupiscence was sin. We respond. He explained himself clearly (De nupt. et concup., bk. 1, ch. 25):

How, it is asked, does the concupiscence of the flesh remain in a regenerate person in whom a remission of all sins has occurred, even though insemination occurs through it, and a carnal child is born with it even if it is born of baptized parents? Or surely, if it can exist in a baptized parent and still not be sin, why is the same concupiscence sin in the offspring? To this it is answered that the concupiscence of the flesh is forgiven [dimitti] in Baptism not in such a way that it does not exist, but in such a way that it is not imputed as sin. But though its guilt has now been destroyed, yet it continues to exist until our every weakness is healed by the continued renewal of the inner man from day to day. For it does not remain substantially, like a body or spirit, but is an affection for an evil quality, like weakness.

Chapter 26:

As in the case of sins—which cannot remain because they pass away when they are done, and yet their guilt remains and shall remain forever unless it is forgiven—so also when [concupiscence] is remitted, the guilt of it is removed. For it is one thing not to have sin; it is another not to be guilty of sin. As actual sins pass away in actuality while they remain in guilt …

Chapter 27:

so on the contrary it can happen that even

(original sin)

remains in actuality but passes in guilt. For the concupiscence of the flesh acts even when it does not exhibit in that action either the consent of the heart where it rules or [the consent of] its members or arms with which it fulfills that which it commands. But what is it doing except evil and shameful desires? For if these were good and lawful, the apostle would not forbid us to obey them.

Chapter 29:

He does much good who does what is written: “Do not go after your lusts [concupiscentias].” But he is imperfect, because he does not fulfill what is written: “You shall not covet [concupisces]” [Exod. 20:17].

Against the sophism of Bellarmine (who claims that something which does not make a person guilty in actuality is not sin at all, as far as Augustine is concerned), observe that:

(1) Against the Pelagians, Augustine teaches that even baptized parents propagate original sin in their offspring on account of the concupiscence that remains in them, though it is not imputed as sin. Therefore surely it is and continues to be sin by its own nature; otherwise children of baptized people would not be born liable to sin.

(2) He calls the weakness which remains in the reborn “affection of an evil quality,” and its desires [he calls] “evil, shameful, and illicit, conflicting with the Law of God.” No one can deny that this is a description of sin, properly speaking, because every shameful and illicit act which turns away from the norm of the Law is sin.

(3) In turn, he compares the remission of original and of actual sins. Therefore in the case of the remission of actual sins, their guilt is removed in such a way that they do not cease to be that which they are in actuality, for the adultery of David did not stop being lawlessness even if it was forgiven. In the same way, in the case of the forgiveness of original concupiscence, the guilt is removed in such a way that it does not stop being what it is by its own nature: lawlessness and sin. Therefore whenever Augustine says that concupiscence is sin, he means the sort of sin which makes us (the reborn) guilty and liable to condemnation in actuality.

He says (Contra Julian., bk. 6, ch. 5): “The justified lack all sin but not all evil.” He explains what sort of evil he means in the same place: “Because such a great evil is in them, how would it not hold them in death and draw them into ultimate death if that bond were not loosed in the remission of all sins which takes place in Baptism?” Ibid.: “He lacks all sin but not all evil. This is said more clearly like this: he lacks the guilt of all evil, but he does not lack all evils. Does he lack corruption of the body? Does he lack the evil of the ignorance through which countless evils are committed by the ignorant?” (This ignorance is surely an evil of fault, because to it Augustine attributes the fact that it does not perceive those things which are of the Spirit of God.)

The rational arguments which apparently prove that concupiscence is not sin.

§ 78. His third class contains various rational arguments.

(I) “Baptism liberates from all sins, and yet does not liberate from concupiscence.”

We respond. This argument will be discussed in our treatise On Baptism [Commonplace XXIII, cf. §§ 134–35].

(II) “Concupiscence is the effect and punishment of original sin. Therefore it is not original sin itself.”

Augustine (Contra Julian., bk. 5, ch. 3) clearly says that concupiscence is both sin and the punishment of sin. It is the punishment of sin with respect to the actual sin committed by Adam. It is sin because, as it inheres in us, it conflicts with the Law of God. It is God who punishes sins with sins, according to Bellarmine (De stat. peccati, bk. 2, ch. 14, col. 174). Thus he is trifling with the expression “original sin,” which, in the antecedent, means the actual sin of Adam which was the origin of the corruption which has infected human nature. In the consequent, it means the corruption inherent in us which was drawn to us by Adam. “Concupiscence” is also an ambiguous word, for at times it means the sinful habit of concupiscence which is original sin itself, but at other times the corrupt impulses and desires of it, which are the punishment for original sin.

(III) “If man were not born of Adam and yet had the concupiscence which he has now, the concupiscence in him could not properly be called sin. Therefore it is not sin of itself and of its own nature. The antecedent is proved by the authority of Augustine (Contra Julian., bk. 3, ch. 12).”

We respond. Here Augustine is reciting the objection of the Pelagian Julianus and refuting it. Therefore what Bellarmine quotes from the discourse of Julianus about the devil creating man is abhorrent to the minds and ears of the devout and is nowhere conceded by Augustine. Furthermore, if evil concupiscence is a natural thing, why did it not have a place in Christ, and why will it not have a place in eternal life?

(IV) [Bellarmine writes:] “The first impulses of concupiscence are not sin. Therefore habitually inherent concupiscence is not sin. The antecedent is proved because corrupt concupiscence is not sin in children, the insane, and in people who are asleep, according to Augustine (Confess., bk. 10, ch. 30), Prosper (De vit. contempl., bk. 3, ch. 6), and Ambrose (De offic., bk. 1, ch. 21). But not even wise and watchful men have the power to avoid those first impulses of concupiscence. Therefore they are not sins.”

We respond. By this reasoning, original sin will again be abolished. For if anything which we have no power to avoid is not sin, infants will not be subject to original sin. Rom. 3:20: “By the Law is the knowledge of sin,” but the meaning of the Law must not be estimated according to the measure of our powers. If the first humans had persisted in their concreated integrity, it would have been within their power and that of their descendants to avoid the corrupt impulses of concupiscence. The fact that they fell into powerlessness to fulfill the Law takes nothing away from the perfection of the divine Law.

Anselm (De conceptu virgin., ch. 28): “From nature God rightly demands what He has given it and what it justly owes Him. If a man and his wife are carried to some great dignity or possession by no merit of their own but solely by grace, and at the same time inexcusably commit a serious crime and because of it are cast down and reduced to slavery, who will say that the children they produced after that loss ought not be subject to that same slavery?” In his Cur Deus homo (bk. 1, ch. 24), Boso asks: “If a man cannot repay a debt, how is he unjust by not repaying what he owes?” To this Anselm responds: “Perhaps if the reason for the inability is not in that man, he can to some extent be excused. But if he is at fault for the inability, just as this does not lighten sin, so it does not excuse the man who does not pay back what he owes. This is like someone commanding his slave to perform a task and ordering him not to throw himself into a pit which he points out to him and from which he cannot by any means crawl out again.”

What Bellarmine fabricates about the possibility of fulfilling the Law will have its own place elsewhere [On Good Works (Commonplace XX), §§ 62–81].

Augustine (Confess., bk. 10, ch. 30) clearly calls the impulses of concupiscence in dreams “shameful acts,” and he groans to be freed from them.

(V) “If concupiscence is sin and remains in a justified person, it follows that Christ has not truly redeemed us from sins but only imputatively, and that the devil is more powerful than Christ.”

We respond. We shall say more about this subject in our article On Justification [Commonplace XIX, §§ 195–248]. Briefly, setting true righteousness and imputed righteousness against each other is malicious. Does the apostle not say clearly: “Faith is imputed for righteousness for the one who believes” (Rom. 4:5)? Does Bellarmine not say that this righteousness is true? Christ has freed us truly and perfectly and has redeemed us truly and perfectly. None of us has ever said that Christ redeemed us imputatively. But we do say this: that the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us. This imputation through faith is as true as the fact that Christ has truly taken our sins upon Himself. Therefore we are truly justified and redeemed, and Christ is truly more powerful than the devil, because the remission of sins which faith seeks and apprehends in the merit of Christ is true and perfect. Meanwhile, the actual renewal in this life is never so perfect that it need not increase every day, as the apostle clearly asserts. Nor does it follow from the imperfection of renewal in this life that Christ did not redeem us truly or that He is inferior to the devil. Instead, from this fact, the atrocity of sin shines forth, an atrocity which inheres so tightly in us that its venom cannot be wiped away before this flesh of sin and this body of death are reduced to the finest ashes.

See Augustine (Contra Julian., bk. 6, ch. 56): “It cannot happen that those who are truly wicked and sinners are not also guilty of the wrath of God.”

We respond. Here he very correctly explains the distinction between mortal and venial sins, concerning which we shall dispute below [§§ 90–102].

Does an exterior act of sin possess its own badness?

§ 79. This concludes our discussion about corrupt concupiscence in the reborn (which is the hidden sin which God places in the light of His countenance, Ps. 90:8) and about interior sins in general.

Exterior sins consist of gestures or words or deeds according to the explanation of the Fifth Commandment given by Christ (Matt. 5:21–22). The Scholastics here ask: “Does an exterior act which is commanded by the will have its own proper goodness or badness because of which it is imputed as sin more than an interior act of the will alone?” Scotus (Quodlib., q. 18) answers in the affirmative and relies upon these foundations: “(1) These acts are forbidden by distinct commandments: the exterior in the Seventh, but the interior in the Tenth. (2) The integrity of the things that, according to right reason, ought to agree with the interior act is one thing, and [the integrity] of those which should agree with the exterior is another. (3) An interior and an exterior act are simultaneously punished more severely than one by itself.”

However, Biel (Sent., 2, dist. 42, q. 1), following Occam (Quodlib., 1, q. 1, q. 20; Quodlib., 3, q. 14), and Gregory of Rimini deny it. “For the goodness would either be the exterior act itself or something added. It is not the first, because the same exterior act can at first be evil and later good; and it cannot be the second, because the additional thing could be nothing except the respect for the conformity and dependency of the exterior act upon the interior act, obviously because it is elicited in conformity with the interior act. But this respect also conforms to the act of natural causes, such as if the will were to command that fire draw near to candles.” From this Biel (art. 2) draws a further conclusion:

There is no interior operation of the will with the exterior that is more meritorious or well-deserving than the interior alone and without a deliberate exterior act, namely, while the equality of the interior act continues to stand. For instance, a man who wants to kill and does kill is worthy of no greater punishment before God than if he were to wish to kill but did not kill, supposing that his intent was equally complete, because a man earns no greater reward because of his will and work than another man because of an equal will without the act. Otherwise, a man, without his will, could become of greater merit or demerit through someone else, since it could be hindered.

In art. 3 he adds: “A man sins more extensively with a concomitant exterior act than with a merely inner intent because he sins with more sins, for an evil inner will is as much a sin as even a deliberate exterior act.”

Thomas ([ST,] 1.2., q. 19, art. 3) makes this distinction: “As an interior and exterior act are considered in the genus of conduct” (as moral acts), “they are a single act. Nevertheless it happens that at times an act which is one in subject has several ways of being good or evil, and at times only one. When an exterior act is good or evil only in regard to its end, then an act of intent and its exterior act have entirely the same goodness or badness. But when the exterior act has goodness or badness in and of itself, according to its material or circumstance, then the act of the will has one goodness, and the exterior act has another.”

Here we follow Scotus, because judgment must be made on morally good or evil actions not just on the basis of the will but also on the basis of the norm of the Law.

1 In English, “concupiscence” normally has only the meaning of “evil desire.” Here, however, the Latin word concupiscentia can mean a good or neutral desire.

2 On “secondary actuality,” see above, p. 49 n. 4.

3 On “evil of fault,” see above, p. 104 n. 2.

4 Here “accident” does not mean “chance.” The “accident” is “something added” to the situation: that sins would not be imputed for Christ’s sake.

5 I.e., the nonliteral meaning.

6 Subordinates are noncontradictory things or propositions of which one is categorized under the other.

7 Read ut non possimus non concupiscere with Cotta instead of ut non possimus concupiscere.

8 See above, p. 90 n. 2.

9 Vindication of All the Articles of Luther Condemned by the Recent Bull of Leo X (1520), WA 7:103–10 (AE 71).

10 On “primary actuality,” see above, p. 49 n. 4.

11 Or “subject.” See above, p. 62 n. 1.

12 Here the “subject which” is the person who does the sin, while the “subject by which” is a part of the person by which, or on account of which, he does the sin.

13 That is, sin is being defined with regard to the relation between the sinner and God.

14 That is, if sin is defined in and of itself (as lawlessness).

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